Chuck Klosterman has a very Klosterman-ly piece up at Grantland in which he riffs on two of the most loathed bands in the world, Creed and Nickelback. It’s an entertaining piece – you’ll be pulled through it – but Klosterman never really comes to a conclusion about why these bands are so polarizing. The best Klosterman can muster is this:
The day before the New York show, Kroeger appeared on a Philadelphia radio station and was asked (of course) why people hate Nickelback so vehemently. “Because we’re not hipsters,” he replied. It’s a reasonable answer, but not really accurate — the only thing hipsters unilaterally loathe is other hipsters, so Nickelback’s shorthaired unhipness should theoretically play to their advantage. A better answer as to why people dislike Nickelback is tautological: They hate them because they hate them. Sometimes it’s fun to hate things arbitrarily, and Nickelback has become an acceptable thing to hate.
Klosterman’s answer looks like a cop-out. As I wrote, a very Klosterman-ly piece. And it’s not correct to say that hipsters hate other hipsters. Hipsters hate some other hipsters and like others. Either way, all hipsters are required to hate Nickelback. Perhaps in 20 years hipsters will begin liking Nickelback as the shine of the band - the most annoying quality a band can have, to a hipster – wears off.
The polarization of Nickelback and Creed is a theme that runs deep in America. Here we are talking about Girls while many more people enjoy NASCAR. Jonathan Franzen versus John Gresham. CNN versus right wing talk radio.
The knock on Creed/Nickelback is that they place their instruments and their rock personas before their nuanced lyrics. Their essence is too strong. Sort of like a double dose of Drakkar Noir.
There are a lot of music acts from overt bubble gum pop to music created by women to rap and hip hop which get free passes on this. The fan base isn’t held to a very high standard. But think of the ways in which these two dichotomous groups of music fans – the Creed/Nickelback fan versus the hipster – consumes music. The fans of the latter attend an event. They want to see a rock concert with these specific bands. There is no nuance about it. Compare that to the ideal hipster music experience. Hipster nirvana is being somewhere where music might happen to be playing and discovering the next band that everyone will be talking about. The hipster strategy is not far removed from your typical weekend rummage sale enthusiast. It’s all about value. The Nickelback/Creed fan is seen as purchasing something plastic at retail prices. The hipster believes he or she is purchasing a carved wooden prototype of the same item and at a cheaper price.
Like this:
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The revolution devours its own children. I think it is all very funny. Ah’m lovin it. The hip attack the hip. GIRLS is raciss, don’tcha know? The girl who wrote GIRLS tweets that she isn’t repped on PRECIOUS and has to erase her tweet because she overstepped the bounds: Thou Shalt Kiss Black Booty 24/7.
There isn’t much to enjoy, so let’s sit back and watch the progs nail each others scrotums (and labia) to the floor. They are fucking totalitarian bastards, they deserve what they do to each other. And I understand that oral is the preferred sexual orientation of the progs when they aren’t being sodomized by blacks.
I’d hypothesize that people hate Nickelback and Creed because it’s a very country-esque musical style. Remove the distortion, add a southern drawl, and their music could be played on any country station (hipsters loathe country). Add the commercial (hipsters hate anything commercial) processed every-song-sounds-the-same pseudo-rock wrapper and you have the most hated band around.
I hate Creed and Nickelback despite liking some of their forebears. Maybe I am more hipster than I previously realized. For me, they sound like cover bands who perform original songs that still sound like covers. If I want warmed over Pearl Jam, I’ll just listen to Pearl Jam as they’re arguably as derivative of themselves as is Creed.
PS It gets funnier. Transgender people are now covered under the 1965 Civil Rights Act. I cannot wait for some gay fashion designer to be the first person to be convicted of violating this, because he denies some tranny a modeling job.
My simple answer is “I dislike Nickelback because their music sucks and their stage personas are childish and annoying at best.” People who want to listen to something “heavy” but are terrified of actual metal listen to Nickelback. “This guy’s singing about blow jobs! Mom’s going to hate this!”
Think of that one guy you know who listens to Nickelback. The dude probably hasn’t listened to anything besides “Alabama’s Rockin’est Rock Radio (brought to you by Bud Light!)” in years. This is also the same dude who thinks pro wrestling is cool and Pantera is a death metal band. Nickelback’s easily-digestible riffs and cornball lyrical themes are cartoonish hard rock for the unwashed masses.
Rock music has always come in two varieties. The first was pure bad ass, bands like GNR, ACDC, Metallica. Their ethos was edgy and dangerous, something like “I’m going to punch you in the mouth and then fuck your girlfriend, but first let me melt your face off with this guitar solo.” Dudes wanted to be them, women wanted to blow them. The second variety was Pop-rock. Tears for Fears, Crowded House, so forth. They aimed for thoughtful lyrics and nice melodies. Currently, Rock only comes in the latter variety, for all intents and purposes. Coldplay and such. If you want bad ass you have to listen to rap and hip hop or obscure bands that nobody likes, like Mastadon or something. Creed and Nickleback are hated because they sort of pretend at being bad ass with the power chords, but their lyrics are pop rocky and nostalgic, bordering on country’esque (as mentioned by ATrain). Too polished and no heart. If I were into conspiracies, I would surmise that this is all by design. Designed to deny young white males examples of assertive masculinity (or something).
I hate Creed. Maybe I am more hipster than I realized. Personally, if I’m in the mood for warmed over Pearl Jam, I just listen to Pearl Jam. They’re one of the few bands that has succeeded in becoming derivative of themselves.
@Bronan Yes, absolutely, Nickelback is total garbage. But the overwhelming outpouring of hatred towards this band signals something else lurking below the obvious, and that’s what Chuck is trying to get at
The other comparable band is ‘Hinder’.
I would have to say I dislike these bands because they are above all douchey dumb-guy music. There is nothing innovative or progressive about it on any level. It all sounds like WWE wrestler entrance music. It’s what it sounds like when people like Chris Jericho or Chris Angel make music.
It’s the musical equivalent of an eyebrow piercing. It’s what I assume Guy Fieri listens to.
As for the other genres of music you mention, there are good examples within those categories, whereas Creed/Nickleback/Hinder is almost it’s own genre: WWE entrance music.
@Bronan…”cornball lyrical themes…”
You nailed it. The lyrics are so stupid and juvenile, yet they seem so pleased with themselves. I would add Evanescene into the mix as well, they are certainly a band most would not admit to liking (and rightfully so, because they suck).
@Aaron how about “prole rock” ?
Nah no nuance necessary.
Nickelback just plain sucks. Their instrument play is very basic and their riffs are generic and uninspiring. Very basic music in general. or generic. Basic and generic. Terrible
The people who listen to bands and Nickelback tend to be type of people who don’t really get into much “indie” or eclectic music. They will just listen to whatever is on the radio, and the radio stations will only play safe, watered-down music, so it ultimately becomes a self-perpetuating loop of bad music and people who listen to bad music. There’s no nuance or subtlety or soul to their songs, kind of like going to TGIF instead of some bar off the beaten path. Not saying that everything off the beaten path is good, but that’s usually where you find the places and people w/ character.
Most people just don’t know or care to seek out music that isn’t spoon-fed to them, so via social proof they just assume Nickelback or Creed is good because other people are listening to them.
I don’t know about Nickelback, but I always thought they hated Creed because they were relatively open about being Christians.
Didn’t read the comments first… Basically yeah second bronan
I guess there is also a politico-cultural aspect of why people hate them. They look right-wing, and that tends to feel at odds with artistic expression. For this reason they are perceived as inauthentic. True artists are inherently left-wing, it is tacitly supposed.
Great comments all. I want to mention that I think both bands suck as well and don’t want anyone to think that I’m defending them (very hipster move on my part).
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But as to the EXTRA vitriol directed towards them, I think it has to do with general mass consumption fatigue: we are being bombarded with junk everyday…movies, television, and music get more and more generic, unoriginal and watered-down so they can be sold to as many people as possible, and people keep consuming this stuff because they see others consuming it, and eventually there will be no room for the truly creative. So really if you take a step back and look at the “Apple” culture, we’ve really become completely boring drones who will like what we’re told to like. So when people hate on Nickelback and their fans, I think it’s because they are tired of feeling that pull from every direction. People they know are asking them if they saw the Hunger Games, or if they go to Pinterest.com, or if they read Twilight, or if they went to the Nickelback concert, and eventually you just start wondering if there are any people left on planet who aren’t spending their lives fascinated with utter garbage.
Btw is is hipster to say “fuck all hispters”?
Creed and Nickelback are the Winger of their generation
I think it’s because as a whole, good rock music has disappeared & Creed & Nickleback are the “godfathers” of the “new rock” genre.
@ derek sutton – Totally agree. Even earlier rock like Jimi Hendrix or Canned Heat were rebellious. Rock is rebellion – sex, drugs, rock. Why would a rock band try and distill those things out of it? Thats what creed or nickelback does- and it shows as being a bunch of pussies.
I guarantee that hipster music is so popular cause it has drugs and rebellion. Let’s get baked and watch the show.
Music toward destruction = keeps it real
Music toward career path = mainstream sell out
Both bands are overproduced 2nd generation grunge using earnest psuedo-Vedder vocals and work from a very limited song template. This is why I hate.
The hipsters hate because the people that listen to them are DUMB VAPID JOCKS that beat them up in high school.
You can take the lyrics from one Nickelback song, add them to another Nickelback song, and you won’t know any difference.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=nickelback%20comparison%20same%20song&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCsQtwIwAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQs4tNeGyTyI&ei=2DCYT5L-JeaW2QX18JiaBw&usg=AFQjCNGiZR6Dc9PawtRB9aRdk8oOwZD5zg&sig2=l74lP-5mlnUIjG5I7pandA
Proof of my previous statement…
Speaking of Vedder vocals, in the 90s Clear Channel and other conglomerates bought up tons of radio stations (due to de-regulation) and basically ruined local radio. To this day, if you turn on a local “Rock” station you will hear stuff like Stone Temple Pilots or Pearl Jam. Once they figured out that this is what people wanted they would only play bands that sounded like the big 4 (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, STP, Alice in Chains). So if they are not playing those bands, then they are playing bands that sound exactly like them, and it continues to this day. I turned on a generic station the other day out of curiosity b/c my mp3 player broke and they were playing “Interstate Love Song” by STP. It’s like they’ve been frozen in time. Anything “rock” that’s been produced since then just sounds like polished analogues of those bands.
it must be tough to earn a living as a rock star if all your customers hate you.
As far as it goes, neither Creed nor Nickelback are good, but there are a lot of similarly not-good, rather generic bands that don’t receive the scorn that these two do. I think Klosterman’s tautology is correct. Ragging on Creed or Nickelback is safe harbor. Enough people were willing to publicly hate Nickelback, and Nickelback had enough market share that they were unavoidable, so everyone knew exactly what they were talking about.
Hating Nickelback is kind of trendy. A lot of people that “hate” them probably aren’t even really exposed to them enough to warrant the hate (versus the kind of person that listens to radio rock and has to frequently switch stations to avoid yet another Nickelback single). Nickelback is the kind of band where you can say they suck to Nickelback fans, and those fans won’t get overly offended. I’m sure people that initially liked them probably got sick of them as well.
I also think this applies a lot more to Nickelback than Creed. Creed may have broke the seal, but Nickelback has by far been pissed on more (and it feels at least that their market saturation has lasted longer, and their exposure more broad despite less critical success, and more sound-alike bands to compete against). I also think that Creed’s negative feedback was driven in large parts by the usual suspects dislike of Scott Stapp, as opposed to the more purely aesthetic objections to Nickelback’s music (which isn’t to say Creed is great, but I seem to recall them getting a bad reputation among the in-crowd before they were legitimately overplayed, while Nickelback was well overplayed before hating them became the popular thing to do).
I always assumed it was because Nickelback is popular with the The Wrong Type Of White People. It’s still unacceptable to consciously voice hatred of middle-class white Americans in flyover states, but the SWPL crowd can still turn their favourite band into a synonym for bad music.
Or maybe I’m overanlaysing and they really just are that awful and derivative. EG:
Truly I think part of the frustration (at least among the non-hipsters) with Creed/Nickleback is not just that they are bad (nauseatingly so), but that there are few alternatives for those that want to rock out without having to look for music completely off the reservation. Someone mentioned GNR earlier as being ‘edgy’ but dude, they were mainstream as all get out. Did it have an edge? Yes, but it was also catchy and accessible and there’s little rock made like that now that doesn’t sound like more cloned regurgitated crap. Or Metallica before the Load (and Re-Load) of crap. I think a lot of the artists who could be capable of doing rock well aren’t doing radio rock but something other (Queens of the Stone Age or The Black Keys perhaps).
Dislike for Creed has always struck me as a generalized anti-Christian sentiment. I own their first album and liked it. Never got into the huge Creed-mania that swept the country in the late 90s but it’s been almost 15 years since then. The band doesn’t produce anything original musically, but it’s not really a case of me hating them as not caring about a washed up band.
(I find it really interesting how it’s extremely rare to hear a Creed song on the radio anymore. Radio sucks and barely plays any variety of music, but you’d think they might occasionally pop a Creed song in there while they’re replaying other stale stuff from the same era.)
By the time I became aware of Nickelback I was no longer listening to radio or radio rock anymore. I don’t think I knew who they were until about 2009. Pretty bad band making rock music aimed at twelve year olds (or people with a twelve year old’s mindset) but again the disproportionate amount of hatred seems to be geared at the social significance of a mostly white prole fanbase. I find crap like Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj, The Black Eyed Peas, etc to be equally worthy of scorn.
I’m not familiar with these two bands, but I’ll take your word for it that they aren’t that great. I think young people are desperate for quality new music nowadays. My brother keeps telling me how great Josh Ritter is. Does anyone here listen to him?
In my opinion Pearl Jam is also horribly bland. I don’t see why they get so much hype and praise.
Camlost,
I’ve never been into Pearl Jam either, although I’ve heard they are good live. Like I said, I think young people are desperate for good, new music.
I’m really glad that Nickelback is Canadian, though. Serves those smug, know-it-all assholes right to have that band representing their wiseass country…
nickelback is to Alice in Chains as motley crue was to Led Zeppelin.
http://isnickelbacktheworstbandever.tumblr.com/
To be 20 when you first hear “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”
Chuck, you have no idea what you missed.
Pearl Jams “Ten” album was epic, especially the guitars and and Vedder’s vocals on Black and Alive. Pearl Jam just sucked for non-musical reasons: Vedder’s politics and taking himself too seriously at awards shows.
Pearl Jam’s somewhat obscure predecessor Mother Live Bone is a wild late 80s glam-rock band / proto-grunge. Their song “Stargazer” is a true lost classic.
Pearl Jam wasn’t a bad band, but their success owes a lot to being in the right place at the right time. Prior to the early 90s bands that came on scene or first attained mainstream popularity there wasn’t much in the way of actual rock music that wasn’t glam/hair bands, excluding maybe a few bands like Metallica that were technically hair metal, but still took themselves somewhat seriously.
Pearl Jam actually took themselves seriously (too seriously), and could lay claim to having been somewhat organically produced by the culture they grew up in, rather than having been dreamed up by recording industry executives.
How is it even possible to “hate” a band? Get a life.
I agree with Donny, and would add that I hate bands like Creed and Nickleback because the sound they produce is what younger people with no conception of musical history think of whenever they hear the phrase “rock music.” As a fan of metal, “extreme metal” bands such as Slipknot and Killswitch Engage are even worse because they are now what those same people envision whenever they hear “heavy metal” being referred to. I hesitate to tell people what kind of music that I like, because if I tell somebody, they’ll all too frequently say, “Oh, I like Killswitch Engage”. Sometimes they’ll mention Metallica, which is slightly less annoying but not much. I’ll explain, “No, I like more traditional metal, as well as power metal. Probably the most famous band that I like would be Iron Maiden.”
Half of the time, they don’t know who Iron Maiden is. To the same degree, Nickleback fans haven’t heard of The Who.
Josh Ritter is very good. His song “Roll On” is one of my favorites.
Also, Mother Love Bone’s “Chloe Dance/Crown of Thorns” and “Shangri-La” are great songs. PA, you are correct, Ten is a classic album but I think “Once” is probably the strongest track on that album. VS. and Vitalogy were pretty good too.
I saw Creed in 2000 when I was a senior in high school. I wasn’t a huge fan, but I liked them enough and they put on a decent show. Their music was good to my 18 year-old ears. [My favorite band is Radiohead btw so I believe that earns me an automatic hipster pass, right?] It was heavy and seemed deeper than alot of the other pop music at the time which if you will recall was Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and N’Sync. I don’t understand the hate for a band; don’t like them or don’t be a fan, but hating them doesn’t make sense to me. That being said, Scott Stapp is a huge douche and can justifiably be hated for his douchiness as a person.
As for why people hate Nickelback so much I think a lot of it has to do with the lead singer’s limp yet slightly wavy hair. It’s unnerving and elicits feelings of hate in many people, myself included. But again I don’t understand the hatred by some of their music. It’s like hating a painter who only paints landscapes albeit in a very competent way. These paintings may not get hung in the MMA but they are still decent paintings. But like Kat Wiliams said: “Haters gonna hate, that’s what they do.”
sex, drugs themes are definitely not rebellious. but they do help one feel rebellious but also safe. and easy. rock was never truly any rebellion music. it is entertainment. it is what it is.
dude from nickleback always sounds like hes taking a shit. when I hear that song “look at this photograph…” I always picture him sitting on the toilet squeezing out a loaf while looking at a picture of his ex. Thats why I hate them
Simple chords and the Eddie Vedder overbite singing style ruin both bands for me. I wonder if the same reasons for the vitriol suggested by the commentators would be applicable to ICP and the Juggalos.
Back to Pearl Jam, “Yellow Ledbetter” is one of the best songs of the 90s. But I wonder how much of it is a ‘you had to be there,’ and by “be” I mean 20-something.
@ PA
Those were the great old days, back when I was young and still had a future to look forward to. But fuck it.
At least I still have the songs. So there’s that.
yellow ledbetter was one of the best songs of the 90′s. of course being the 90′s, there was not a whole lot of competition. i liked it though i was not a big fan of pearl jam.
Of the less-family songs of that time, one in particular has a great spirit of the early/mid-90s: Candlebox “Far Behind.” The last third of the song especially rocks out.
less-famous songs
Some commentors above skirt around the core of the truth, but no one flat out comes out and says it:
Almost every band mentioned by Klosto in that article as being safe to hate is massively influenced by Pearl Jam.
Pearl Jam destroyed rock music. Specifically with their endless, droning, tuneless, lugubrious, self important, sentimental song “Jeremy”.
A whole generation of over-emoting baritone douche vocalists was spawned with that song.
LOL….what a bunch of douchebags.
Most people think of music as something to while away the time while doing something else. It is background noise. If that noise is also melodic with some catchy lyrics, then even better. Hardly anyone listens to music for soul saving solace in nuanced poetry and new ways of harmonizing. They listen to it because it gives them something to tap their foot to or to drown out the noise of traffic. To 99% of the population, music is completely unimportant.
Only hipsters (defined as anyone that conforms to the non-conformist conformity) feel a need to hate these bands. People that have their own opinions just like the music. If you are a professional musical theorist then you may have some valid reason to dislike their music but only a conformist fool would pretend to hate it.