...Ugh, fine, let's just get this over with.
I make no secret of the fact that I don't think Nickelback live up to their reputation of being the worst band in the world. I do make jokes about them and their music, but that's all it is for me: jokes. I have just about all of their studio albums (only one I don't have is The State) and I will play them whenever I want to have something on in the background while writing stuff that isn't reviews (heck, I'm currently writing this with "She Keeps Me Up" from No Fixed Address on) because, really, sometimes you just need some music for background listening and Nickelback works as that for me. That's really the thing with Nickelback: if you approach them like any other radio rock band and view them as casual listening material, they're actually not that bad. Unfortunately, most people who are rock fans tend to take the viewpoint that rock music MUST be something that you focus on and try to look for deeper meanings in the band's music, only to be shocked that there's nothing deeper to Nickelback's music.
Which is kind of dumb when you think about it hard enough: most people don't approach most pop music expecting to hear something deeper than what is on most pop radio stations. Popular music isn't exactly noted for depth, so trying to approach Nickelback as anything other than how most people would approach pop music (which is basically "is it an enjoyable listen? Is it catchy? THAT'S ALL I NEED TO KNOW!") is kind of missing the point a bit. It's kind of like trying to approach glam metal expecting to hear a progressive metal song underneath the outfits: you can rage about it not being deep all you want, but most people will still go "since when has glam metal been about deeper meanings than "you were good in bed"?" and say that you're being harsh for it not living up to a set of standards that it wasn't focused on hitting anyway. This is not to say that you should not approach glam metal (or Nickelback) with the viewpoint of it being just listenable and love it for that reason, just that you should judge it on what it's trying to do, not necessarily what you WANT it to do. Nickelback aren't trying to offer deep music, they're trying to offer enjoyable music that you listen to in the background of other stuff (like most radio stuff is), so, in that aspect, I think they do an admirable job.
Yet it seems that most people who are music listeners haven't received that memo or lit it on fire and danced on the ashes while cackling insanely, as Nickelback hatred is just as strong as ever from rock fans, despite attempts from non-Nickelback fans to point out that the hatred has stopped being funny and now comes across as a refusal to take a "live and let live" attitude, which also serves to give the band MORE exposure to keep them going than if everyone who hated them had just shut up about them.
...Why am I being reminded of Anita Sarkeesian with that last paragraph?
Anyway, this week brought out a tale that just made me want to repurpose my desk as a club and forcefully erase the stupidity that I had just read out of my memory. Unfortunately, my desk is too heavy for me to lift above my head and I don't want to risk accidentally breaking my neck while dropping it on my head, so I went for plan B: pointing out the flaws in this bout of stupidity while being a snide git.
Hey, might as well stick with what I'm good at!
Anyway, some guy who I'm not going to bother to name has decided to listen to only music by Nickelback for a week, claiming it to be "the ultimate test of endurance", because apparently traveling to the South Pole on foot, training to go to space or climbing Mount Everest is nothing compared to listening to Nickelback. Sorry, captain Scott, because you never listened to Nickelback for a week, you don't know what true struggle is, according to the internet!
I'm sorry if I'm sounding really bitter about that, but anyone who has even the slightest indication of what people have to go through before they can go into space, climb Mount Everest or travel to the South Pole will back me up that those are not things you can just do. They take months, if not years, of hard training, require you to be in the peak of physical health and cope with conditions that most people today have no idea of before they can go do them. By comparison, what is listening to a band for a week require you to do? Nothing. Forgive me for being less-than-sympathetic to the guy if his hatred for Nickelback is so much that he actually considers this a test of endurance, but I think the astronauts, climbers and polar explorers out there would like a word with him about the hard work they have to go through to do those impressive feats that, even now, are some of the most difficult things that you can do as a human being.
I will be fair, the guy is doing it for charity...but that only makes me want to point out two obvious things that make me not be amused with the guy making a big deal about this. First of all, his comments on doing this challenge are making this out to be a challenge on an epic scale. These are actual comments from his Twitter feed about the challenge:
The Nickelback onslaught is wearing me down ... I now know why no human has attempted such a feat
Only two days in & I'm already feeling the effects of such huge quantities of Nickelback. We're in unexplored psychological territory hereMay I point out that all the guy is doing is LISTENING TO A BAND'S MUSIC! He's not being wired up to a chair and checked to see how much electricity he can cope with being shocked with or being subjected to actual torture. Even if it's just the guy is deliberately hamming it up for the sake of being funny and exaggerating for comic effect (I've done it in the past: whenever we run out of coffee at home, my first reaction is to jokingly pretend that it's the end of the world, with as much overacting as I can manage for the sake of a laugh), it's still not something really worth overreacting about!
The second thing I want to point out is that, well, acting like nobody has listened to Nickelback for a large period of time is completely forgetting the fact that Nickelback do have fans (heck, one of my college friends is a big Nickelback fan!) and people who aren't necessarily fans, but who don't have a problem with them (like myself). It's not like the guy is listening to Lulu for a week non-stop or something which has next to no defenders: this is a popular band that the guy just doesn't like and is an easy target to make digs at on the internet. Me and my friend could probably go through this "ultimate test of endurance" without a single complaint, but, for this guy, it's psychological torture after two days? Yeah, sorry, I'm not buying it.
But here's the thing that lights my fuse and made me come at this with the tone I have: the guy has made $18,000 in two days already and there are people taking this as a serious challenge. It's great that folks are supporting charities through this, but that much in two days? And giving the guys words of support as if this is a challenge of the ages? What the actual fuck, internet, have you thrown your brain out just to continue sticking to the "Nickelback sucks" bandwagon?
First of all, a key point that has been missed: the guy didn't say he had to listen to Nickelback non-stop, so what's to stop him from just not listening to music entirely for a week and claiming he did it? I'll be fair, his tweets do indicate that he is at least taking that part of the challenge seriously, but you'd have all looked kind of stupid if it turned out he'd used that loophole to avoid actually listening to Nickelback's music for the whole week. $18,000 dollars for doing absolutely nothing, basically.
Second of all, really think about how tough it actually is to listen to a Nickelback song. You might find it bad, but put it on in the background on fairly reasonable volume while you do something else and tell me what you remember from it. Not a lot outside of the chorus? Hate to point this out again, but THAT'S THE SAME THING WITH MOST POPULAR MUSIC. Even iconic bands aren't exempt from this: how many of you know the lyrics to "It's The End of the World as we Know it" aside from the chorus and the very beginning of it? The lyrics to "Jump" by Van Halen? "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana (heck, do you know ANY lyrics to that one? I know I don't!)?
...Oh, want more modern examples from the radio? OK: "Roar" by Katy Perry. "Applause" by Lady Gaga. "I Cry" by Flo Rida (heck, anything by Flo Rida!). "Maps" by Maroon 5. "Shots" by Imagine Dragons. That...thing that sampled Heart's "Alone" which I'm trying to forget ever happened for the sake of my already heightened blood pressure. All of those came out in the last two or three years and got listened to by a lot of people. Give me proof that you remember more than the chorus of any of those songs.
Can I officially rest my case now or do you want me to keep this up all day?
Nickelback are basically stuck in the position of being an easy target because they conform to the trappings of modern pop music, but are also a rock band at the same time. I'm not going to raise my flag in the Nickelback camp at all, as I don't like them enough to want to do it, but, at this point, I've got more reasons to defend Nickelback than I do to hate them and the "Nickelback sucks!" bandwagon is just making me want to support them just to spite the overly vocal hatedom who hasn't got the hint that they're retreading the same ground so hard that you could practically plant crops in it by now.
Make this guy's charity thing be the last time Nickelback hatred causes dumb things to happen, guys. I'm seriously getting tired of seeing Nickelback jokes and comments everywhere, but this is just ridiculous, short sighted and proof that those of you who don't like Nickelback haven't thought at all about how to deal with them. You're not forced to say how much you hate them whenever they get mentioned and doing it only makes news about them more profitable on websites and gets them trending on stuff, so how about you do the smart thing and just DON'T TALK ABOUT THEM AT ALL? That way, news about them becomes less profitable to post on websites (because you're not clicking on it, so it's not registering as potential profits), so they get less media coverage and they might sink away from the popular eye because you're not constantly putting them back in it through stuff like this guy's thing.
I will be nice enough to hope the guy gets through the challenge and hope he does donate all of the money he gets to charity, but, for everyone else reading this, please keep what I've said in mind and, for the love of all that is holy, try to take it to heart the next time an artist comes up that you don't like. We're supposed to be an intelligent species, for God's sake, not a bunch of children with an inability to think beyond their first reaction to seeing something they don't like!
