I honestly don't mind Nickelback joining the Republic roster. Seems like a good move, I suppose. Republic gets a hell of a lot more mainstream press than Roadrunner, that's for sure. Because we all know Nickelback's just there for the money.
And more money for them to spend on making more music and touring other than for living. I've heard Roadrunner is getting smaller now in the US since the label has always been a rock and metal record company and things are getting more harder for the label to make money and continue their business. It's not very easy for them to compete against other labels with a wider variety of music.
Nickelback is pretty bad, but they don't deserve the hate they get. Flame me all you want, but How You Remind Me, Photograph, and Burn It To The Ground are all good songs. That being said, a lot of the other things they made are pretty bad, Rockstar is one of the worst rock songs ever, and I will not be checking out their new album.
Yeah, I never really got the hate for Nickelback either. Making the same type of music for each new album is by far from a reasonable excuse to get as much hate as they have. It's not a great habit for any artist, but they shouldn't really get a massive amount of hate for it, realistically. It's good rock music, after all. Even then, it's not like all the songs actually sound the same. If you take a simple listen to Here and Now, you'd find a fast-paced commercial fight anthem ("This Means War"), a rather sarcastic drum-driven drinking song ("Bottoms Up"), an acoustic guitar-driven protest anthem ("When We Stand Together"), a fast-paced sex song with a kick-ass chorus ("Midnight Queen"), a piano-driven anti-suicide song ("Lullaby") and a mid tempo love song with an explosive chorus ("Trying Not to Love You"). Nickelback cover a wider spectrum in the constraints of average 40 minute albums than most people give them credit for.
For me as a non-fan I don't the severe level of hate they get. I love Chad's voice but for me personally, their singles just seems to represent a top-tier level of generic rock. People say they have some good songs so it seems like maybe the singles their label picks makes them seem ultra generic and doesn't represent their albums very well.
Actually NB did added some changes on each album. They just follow the "If it's not broken, don't fix it" direction. Chad and the company understands what works for them and what doesn't. AC/DC didn't treat music like it's rocket science either and they're now one of the most well known hard rock bands of all time.
And nearly every AC/DC song sounds exactly the same, it gets quite boring. Back in Black and Highway to Hell may be classics albums of Rock, but beyond that, there's nothing really special about the band. Well known =/= quality.
The difference is that the second AC/DC comes on, you know that fucking guitar tone. You know who it is. With NB you might recognize a hit song cause you've heard it a million and one times, but they don't stand out at all. They could be any shitty redneck hard rock band. If "This is how you remind me" started playing in my room right now, I probably wouldn't recognize it until the chorus. Also Bon Scott and Brian Johnson aren't pretentious double bags married faux punk pop singers.
^This, so much. Everytime Photograph comes on the radio, I always strugggle to figure out who it is, becacause it's so darn generic. I might have some problems with AC/DC, but like you said, they have an instanly recognizable sound, something Nickelback will never be able to achieve.
Sorry to turn this into an AC/DC discussion thread, but AC/DC with Bon Scott is fuckin' awesome in my opinion. It's the Brian Johnson-led AC/DC that sags and has nothing special to it. IMO
For sure, I wholeheartedly agree. There is for sure better material in the Bon Scott era than there is the Brian Johnson Era. The only notworthy album with Johnson is Back in Black, but even with that, I think Bon Scott had a lot to do with the writing, even though they deny so. I just listed Back in Black and Highway to hell because I feel it's the best two albums of each Era, which is also their two best albums in general. Weirdly (or I guess not weirdly) they both relativly came out around the same time.
"Edge of a Revolution" has premiered. Check out the lyrics on Rock Genius. Two things I instantaneously love about this song: Nickelback are slowly becoming more political and coherent as Here and Now indicated and the band brought back the stadium chorus! But of course, knowing from the Thirty Seconds to Mars thread, most of you don't like choir choruses.
I'm going to read the lyrics first and then compare the flow of the song with the melody that comes up in my head. EDIT: That I'm able to do that with about 85% accuracy (delivery and accented words, yo) to a song that just premiered, that is a bad thing.
Jesus, that was BEYOND bad. I'd rather hear Chad Kroger sing about kicking out lights and wanting to be a coked out douchebag, than sing a half-assed attempt at a "political" song. The song suffers from what Pidgey spoke of above. It literally sounds like any Rock band ever. There is nothing to set it apart from the crowd.