” The day before the New York show, Kroeger appeared on a Philadelphia radio station 4 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. They’re technically rich and technically famous, so they just have to absorb the denigration and insist they don’t care. They have good songs and they have bad songs, and the bad songs are bad enough to build an anti-Nickelback argument, assuming you feel like that’s important. But it’s never required. It’s not like anyone is going to contradict your thesis. There’s no risk in hating Nickelback, and hating something always feels better than feeling nothing at all.
Kroeger is a borderline genius 5 at his craft: He listens to the radio, studies every hit, deconstructs how those songs succeed, and then creates a composite simulacrum that cannot be deconstructed by anyone else. “Bottom’s Up” is about drinking your face off. “Animal” is about getting a hand job in a car. “How You Remind Me” is about being reminded of something you once forgot. I have no idea what “Something in Your Mouth” is about (I’m guessing dentistry school). His lyrics are sexist, though I suppose they’d be considered empowering if performed by specific people who aren’t Nickelback. The machinations of the live show are full-on hair metal: At one point, the band boards a spacecraft and is hydraulically suspended 30 feet in the air, although nobody in the crowd seems to find this especially unusual. The gender split of the audience looks to be about 50-50. 6 That ratio mildly surprises me, although I don’t know why (probably my own prejudice). More surprising is the degree to which the security staff at MSG clearly loves this music; you don’t often see ushers singing along with the band that’s onstage, but that’s what was happening here. They knew every word 7 to every chorus. Nickelback’s core demographic is vaster than Alberta.”
