Album Review: Nickelback - Dark Horse
There are three kinds of people on this planet: people who like Nickelback, people who hate Nickelback, and people who like them but won’t admit it. This writer fell under the first category up until Silver Side Up, when they changed into their current “super sensitive bad boys” incarnation and bands like Hinder or Audiovent became their clones.
Knowing they got bigger around the time of Puddle of Mudd’s big break or the slow decline of angry white nu-metal, Nickelback comes off as a relic of ’90’s alternative mainstream. Where’d the success come from? These Canadian rockers make money from Kroeger’s gritty vocals, formulaic rock anthems and the raunchy sex talk prevalent on radio these days (T.O.A.D.’s “Bad Bad Girlfriend” for example). This blind success brings us to 2008’s less-than-anticipated, yet marketable radio rock embodiment, Dark Horse.
This album is essentially All The Right Reasons or The Long Road all over again with reminiscent, cookie cutter track “This Afternoon” hearkening back to the headache known as “Photograph”, and “Something In Your Mouth” retracing “Because Of You” and “Next Contestant”. I emphasize the backward stepping in lieu of this album’s title attempting to be foreboding while adding some adult atmosphere to it. There are three songs on this release that come across as adult themed (four if you include “This Afternoon”, which leans more towards high school hi-jinks);however, the closest it gets to adult sensibilities is later on with “S.E.X.”, where the narrator explains his menage-trois fantasy and “This Afternoon” where presumably the same guy is recalling days of “hitting the bong like a freight train”. Well, maybe not that adult like.
The problem is that while Nickelback’s front man tries so hard to convert us to perversion, it feels less like Matthew McConaughey hitting on you and more like those creepy old men at your local burger joint. Chad Kroeger might be blond now, but he still sounds like a sex-crazed 40-something with a soft side, and boy have things changed. Gone are the days of The State, when their songs seemed like twisted story lines with fucked up characters that even the most ordinary people could relate to. Tightly written epics like “Leader of Men” were replaced with the radio-saturating “How You Remind Me”, when Kroeger was deemed one of VH1’s Fugliest Musicians, and “Gotta Be Somebody” is now making itself the new “If Everyone Cared”.
If there were anything good to be said about Dark Horse, it’s that in terms of the genre, the album does start off strong with the new stripper theme, “Something In Your Mouth”, where Kroeger can’t seem to contain himself as he spouts off about some “naughty thing” that’s “ripping up the dance floor”, to which he begs her to “shake [her] ass around for everyone.” It’s a strong song in the sea of Nickelback, but lyrically? Let’s hope the feminists turn their shoulder at this one.
Shortly after, you get the faux rebel rock stomp “Burn It To The Ground” and the aforementioned first single, “Gotta Be Somebody”, both generic tunes that warrant a mediocre listen, all collected on a sub par record that’s sure to sell millions. So, if the same regurgitated Clear Channel trash fits your tastes, then by all means Dark Horse is for you. But as a whole, this release affords the listener jack squat. In all honesty, the best thing to be said about 2008’s Dark Horse is that maybe, for just a little while, “Rock Star” won’t be all over the damn radio every five minutes.
Rating: 
Check Out:
Nickelback - “Gotta Be Somebody”
Awesome video
haha!
I must say, Nickleback is complete shit.
A Turd Sandwich>Nickelback
^What they said…
Haven’t listened to the album. Don’t plan to. Just a brutally bad band.
But I would have to say they are probably better than Puddle of Mudd.
Just because you don’t like music, doesn’t make it bad music. Mainstream doesn’t equal bad. Generic doesn’t equal bad.
They are talented musicians and come up with popular music. If they were bad, or their music sucked, or they had no talent, they wouldn’t be successful.
I don’t like Nickelback, but the crap that gets flung at them simply because it became cool to hate them is pretty lame.
Even this ‘review’ is a bit over the top. Cookie cutter anthems? Basically the same as other albums? Seriously? These are the things you choose to critique a band with?
Who are we talking about? Kanye West? The latest indie band that sounds exactly like a dozen other indie bands out there? Let’s praise them because we’ve definitely forgotten about the last band that we thought were going to be the next “big thing”.
My point, I guess, is this:
Trendsetters, scenesters, hipsters, indie kids, everyone who thinks they are musically superior in any way.. You guys need to stop being sheep of the douchebag variety. Stop being so musically insecure, and then you’ll stop hating on every band that everyone who “knows music” hates on. It the most unoriginal thing ever.
as much as what your saying is very rationale and stand up millax, i cant agree.
these guys are shit and so are every one of their fans for making this garbage so popular.
its a sad state of affairs when these guys will sell out a 12,000 seater arena in my town in april, yet other more talented bands dont even get a shout on tv/radio.
They are talented musicians and come up with popular music. If they were bad, or their music sucked, or they had no talent, they wouldn’t be successful.>>>
Then how do you explain 1995-2002?
Millax, I don’t base them on their similar sounding catalog entirely. Curb, The State, Silver Side Up? Good albums, and in terms of technical talent and production quality, this is great fodder for the radio station.
But money and hit songs do not always make a good band. Overplayed singles do not make a good band. Following trends as opposed to setting them does not make a good band. Hype doesn’t make a good band.
Talent, originality to a point, songwriting, personalities, and more…Nickelback has enough talent to give the drunk white girls a good song to lap dance with, the songs are all the same and they don’t even own up to it!
AC/DC’s albums generally all sound the same, but they want it that way and they’re good at what they do although they’re not as influential as they used to be. Nickelback has the ability to spice things up and change a little, but instead they come off like regurgitated grunge or Cobain with down syndrome.
Nickelback is hyped up Canadian emo for country chicks - period. You can’t be Billy Bad-ass and turn around to give someone a crying shoulder.
And as for all of these “indie” bands you say sound alike? I agree, there are a lot of similar-sounding bands on the ground circuit. Funnily enough, while a majority of garage bands never stick around, some of the worst-sounding ones sound better than hearing “Photograph” so much it makes your ears bleed.
You want a party on a CD? Pick up Jimmie’s Chicken Shack and move on.
They are in it for the money and bitches….and that song Rock Star keeps rubbing it in my face!!!
Milax, thank you. That’s all I have to say. That was the funniest post ever. I can’t believe i heard the word talent and nickleback in the same sentence.
They are talented musicians and come up with popular music. If they were bad, or their music sucked, or they had no talent, they wouldn’t be successful.>>>
Then how do you explain 1995-2002?
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You are either referencing popular music’s supposed “third dark age” or Nickelback’s career up until the release of Silver Side Up.
If it is the latter, I can only assume you are asking me how such a “talented” band was not popular during those years, or with those albums in the US. I am from Canada. Nickelback was pretty well known after the release of Curb, and were huge in Canada once The State came out. They had little publicity in the States until Silver Side Up catapulted them into fame. It was also around this time that it started to become unpopular to like them.
Now I am not saying their music makes any huge progression. In fact, I think I argued that they are simply not alone in that regard. But they have attempted to change the themes of their music. Their early albums dealt pretty much solely with drugs. They have moved on to other things like sex, love and death, which by no means is any huge leap. But you need to take into consideration the artist before you take in the work. To be blunt, Chad Kreoger is never going to win any awards for intelligence. He is from a small town, and if you have ever met him he definitely has a small town personality. His music reflects who he is, and it touches base with a large community in North America. Simple music for simple people.
You all constantly judge those people who like Nickelback and refer to them as lap dancing “drunk white girls” and such. I mean, those generalizations do nothing to support any case you are trying to make. Many people like Nickelback. Their fans range in age from old couples to younger kids. People can still relate to their music, and will continue to do so regardless of how much the trendsters hate them.
Now I understand some people are frustrated that they can’t hear bands they think are amazing on the radio, but that is just the nature of popular music. The hilarious thing here is that as soon as that band actually starts to get played on the radio, or their shows start to sell out, you will have claimed they have sold out and moved on.
You don’t want to hear the ‘talented’ band on the radio, you want them to remain somewhat obscure so you can claim to listen to ‘real’ good music. If they do make it big, it becomes “I listened to them before they sold out”.
It’s time to just let people like the music they want to like. Let Nickelback work with the formula they have which works for them and their fans.
Not everyone can put out a “top-heavy album [which] simply gets old after the novelty wears off”. An album that is “far from perfect”, and is full of “awkward moments - both lyrically and musically”.
…But I guess if your Kanye, someone who can still deliver that much valued street cred to all those hipsters who praise him, your absolutely forgettable album can still be given 4/5 stars.. right? Well, that is, until it becomes uncool to be a fan of Kanye.
lol @ using that video clip
did uh…pitchfork do something similar when they reviewed a jet album? doing such things loses credibility, sorry guys.
Kudos to Millax…while I find Nickelback to be an absolutely wretched band, I have to admit that was the most impassioned and articulate defenses of them that I have ever seen. And you are absolutely right about people liking what they think it is cool to like. That said, I think you are wrong about the specific case. I don’t think that the indie kids and the hipsters you are referring to EVER liked Nickelback, even before they were on the radio. Maybe in Canada…I don’t know.
Either way…it is possible to dislike a band without disliking them because you are supposed to dislike them. I’m sure there are people who pretend to dislike Nickelback because they are popular. But there are a whole helluva lot more people who dislike them because they just don’t like shitty music. And there are a whole lot more than that who like them BECAUSE they are popular and they aren’t pretentious music snobs like us. It takes all sorts. If someone really likes bands like Nickelback I really don’t give a crap. People are allowed to enjoy whoever they like.
Though I disapprove of your cheap shots at Kanye West in each of your posts. How can you make the argument that people dislike Nickelback just because they are popular and then say that these same people like Kanye West instead. Kanye West is infinitely more popular than Nickelback right now, so by your logic if I dislike Nickelback only because they are popular I should REALLY freaking hate Kanye West.
The reason people who love music appreciate Kanye West and not Nickelback is because Kanye is by far the most original, innovative, and inventive artist within his genre of the past decade. Nickelback on the other hand is…dude…it’s Nickelback. Why are we even discussing this? If people like’em…great. But not even their biggest fans are going to argue that they are special in any way.
People just hate them because their accessible, most of my music consists of ‘rock’ (pop) chicks and Britney Spears, and I find a place in my heart, and my boyfriends heart fyi, for them, they do accessable music, despite most of the modern radio, and indie rock, they make rock bands in general accessable for me, and are the only band in my collection, and I don’t even have boy rock band teenage bands like Simple Plan, and they are the only type of those bands I like, I mean, People really need to get off their high horse and accept the fact that they are more accessable then many many rock bands these days, and should, by pure iconic-like stature, be appreciated, if not loved!…that the basic right for everybody to love what they love, and dispite the backlash and crap Nickelback get, they still sell out stadiums, still have couples jamming to their record and have enough pure energy in their music to get to even the most obsessive dancer (aka me)…its not popularity, or even the fact they are on radio, its because they are so accesable, don’t do suicide tracks, don’t go emo on their fans, have emotional songs on their record, open up their accessaability every time they release a record….accessability and interesting, sane music is not a curse really!
I even hear a progression in the style of The Long Road -> All The Right Reasons -> Dark Horse…Long Road was not as sweet as All the Right Reasons and Dark Horse is more guiter based and has more guiter solo’s and is more sexual then All The Right Reasons, if anything, personally, with this record, I think they find a whole new level of creativity and innovativity, Burn It To The Ground is not the kind of lyrics you find on The Long Road, and If Everyone Cared is not vaguely even touched on, lyrically and emotionally on The Long Road…Dude did you even listen to the record, REALLY, listen to the guiter, hear the fact that Chad worked with the best guiterist ever, last year, in the solo’s which are exciting and on this record
“The problem is that while Nickelback’s front man tries so hard to convert us to perversion, it feels less like Matthew McConaughey hitting on you and more like those creepy old men at your local burger joint.”
You nailed it right on the head.
did uh…pitchfork do something similar when they reviewed a jet album? doing such things loses credibility, sorry guys.>>>
Sure they did, but there’s an actual review to go with it, and one that fits with the subject material.
Rolling Stone uses star ratings too, does that bring us down as well? Oh, and we hyperlink our work like every other news publication… is that a negative too?
If the idea works… why not? Now, had we just posted the video, I would agree with you, but there’s an actual review here, so…
For me, it all comes down to their lyrics and Nickelbacks lyrics are some of the most god-awful I’ve ever heard. The people that I know that love nickelback, do so because they can relate to their lyrics. Problem is ANYONE can relate to their music because their lyrics are so unbelievably generic. A third grader can relate to nickelback songs. They are an average band who get far beyond average recognition for doing absolutely nothing that hasn’t been done before. Nickelback has never had a critically accepted album. Why? Because it’s “cool” to hate them and some conspiracy? No it’s because people who “know music” as you so elegantly put it, recognize them for what they are. Nothing new, nothing extraordinary, and nothing more than radio music. Their a re-hashed version of Bush who was a re-hashed version of Pearl Jam.
“You don’t want to hear the ‘talented’ band on the radio, you want them to remain somewhat obscure so you can claim to listen to ‘real’ good music. If they do make it big, it becomes “I listened to them before they sold out”.
Wrong. Radiohead is massively popular and yet the indie crowd loves them. Jay-Z is massively popular and very respected in the indie community. Then when you claim that once a bad goes popular we call them sell-outs. There’s a reason why most bands earlier works are considered their best. Once a band becomes big, most of the time they lose their passion and they do just enough to sell records. That’s why people bitch, not because they became popular.
You have basically listed the short list of exceptions to the point I have made. Very rarely is it that a band can raise from the indie ranks and keep their popularity.
Personally, I think Kanye West is the most overrated artist since U2. I understand why he is some sort of musical darling, there is appeal to his music, but everyone heaps praise on the guy for rehashing the same raps over and over. He’s the latest Eminem or Dr. Dre.. The hype will end, the raps will get old, and all we will hear is that next “generational” talent.
Anyways, you claim Nickelback have never had a critically acclaimed album?
They have won several American Music Awards, several Billboard Music Awards, two of their albums have been nominated for Grammy’s, they have won a handful of Juno’s (Canada’s version of a Grammy) and several other minor awards like People’s Choice Awards and Muchmusic awards.
It seems that they obviously have had some sort of critically acclaimed material. Obviously not from the critics you subscribe to, but that’s how the music business works. I mean, it just makes your review sound even cheaper when you throw out stuff like that without doing any research. You hate Nickelback. I get it. Next time, save everyone a bit of time and just write that at the top of the page.
Now I’m definitely not trying to shove Nickelback down your throat here. It’s alright that you dislike their style of music. Hell, I’m not even a fan of it myself. The issue here is that when you do a review, try to keep your bias out of the article, and if you can’t do that, then at least keep the pot shots to a minimum. They take away from the review. You come off as one of those hipsters trying to prove his cool rather than someone whose opinion is worth anything. If that’s cool with you, then keep on keepin on, I guess.
We all know the grammy’s, american music awards, and MTV music awards are huge jokes so that point was mute… then you compared Kayne West to gangsta rap showing you have absolutely no knowledge of hip-hop. Also I didnt do this review, so i dont know why you keep bringing me up and this review. I’ll ignore the personal attacks but any way I digress. Nickleback makes simple music for simple people (when it comes to music). Nothing wrong with it and I have to admit the 13 year me loved “How You Remind Me.” Then I got older realized that their music never changed and they reused the same themes over and over and over again. I’ve said it before I’ll say it again Nickelback is an average band talent wise, but they make everything they do extreme accesablie and non-polarizing. They are this generations RATT. Sells alot of records, re-hashes the same music over and over again and then forgotten ten years latter.
AMA’s, Junos, Grammy’s…these are industry awards. They have nothing to do with critical acclaim.
Your point is that Kanye is a hyped up artist who will flame out like…Dr. Dre? It’s been sixteen years since “The Chronic” and it is still considered one of the most important rap albums of all time. Not to mention all his work with NWA. And production credits since. This is your example of an “overhyped” artist? For that matter…Kanye already has a greater discography than Dre. And of course the raps will eventually get old and the hype will end and people will move on. That happens to every single artist in every genre…why should it be different for Kanye.
But none of this has anything to do with Nickelback. Nickelback is a band that is made for people who aren’t obsessed with music and that is fine. They are generic and boring…and that is fine too because their audience doesn’t really care. But I don’t see how you can call a guy out for giving a bad review to a band that is pretty much universally either disdained or ignored by music fans. Personal bias? Of course there is personal bias…that’s the whole nature of a music review. It’s not objective. Personally, I wouldn’t have even bothered reviewing a band like Nickelback, but David chose to and as a reviewer he has every right to give a bad score to an album he dislikes.
Mike and Luke just put you down, Milax
with all the money Nickelback makes, they wont have to care about people who “dont” like their music….
Nov 30th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
[...] off the release of its new album Dark Horse, and our subsquent, rather controversial review, Nickelback has announced details for a two-month North American tour beginning early next year. [...]