Review Summary: Fun for all the wrong reasons.
There’s a number of bands that everybody seems to inexplicably dislike. Or not necessarily everybody. I suppose that what I should have said would be something to the tune of “Bands that mainstream audiences enjoy immensely, but people that hold more passion for music abhor.”
Despite having would many would regard as rather poor taste in music, I tend to find myself falling into the latter category. A bit of a music elitist, who is somewhat of an asshole when discussing music that I dislike that other people don’t. For evidence, you need only look at my reviews of “Trench” by Twenty One Pilots, and “Origin” by Imagine Dragons, in which I come off as a massive douche. Mostly because I am, and if I’m being honest, the Imagine Dragons album broke me to some degree. It was hard to maintain a professional tone when writing about it.
Despite those two bands falling into the category of “mainstream crap,” they both pale in comparison to the masters of mediocrity, the lords of lame; the bringers of boredom: Nickelback.
Nickelback is quite possibly the most despised band that has every rose to mainstream success. Sure, there were other bands that managed to obtain similar levels of fame, with bands in the genre like Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin, and Three Days Grace also managing to get pretty big. But luckily for them, they managed to hold on to what made them popular in the first place, and they never became outright bad, despite having sold out to some degree.
Nickelback however, has not done this. After their third LP, “Silver Side Up,” they did a few things, and some of them were good, and some were almost contradictory with their own decisions.
1. They transitioned into a more streamlined, digestible sound, in terms of production, and vocals.
2. They sped up their sound, and made it heavier in the process, with massive drums, thick bass, and songs that sometimes had upwards of 10 or 12 guitar tracks layered overtop of each other, resulting in a full bodied, incredibly meaty sound. In addition, everyone in the band seemed to drastically improve on their respective instruments. However, this newish sound was nearly bordering on Nu-Metal, with some groove rock and trash influences, and that was a potent combination that resulted a lot of new fans.
3. Their lyrics took a nosedive so severe, that they’re still stuck in a hole to this day, that they will never dig themselves out of.
So basically, they went mainstream in a somewhat tasteful way, by marginally changing their genre in a manner that there was still some substantial edge to the vocals, and some crunch to the guitars.
But sadly, Chad’s skills as a lyricist fell flat on the floor. And this is most apparent when taking a look at this album’s opening track, “Follow You Home.” This song is absolutely fantastic. Fast, tight drumming, making use of a double bass pedal, with a simple, yet massive riff played overtop is our first introduction to this song, and it’s a strong one. It explains right away what this album is: A heavy hitting hard rock album with no corners cut, and no holds barred. The song continues its trajectory, as it quiets down for the verses, and we hear the reason why this band is still so popular, even today. Chad Kroeger delivers one of his best performances on this album, with this one song displaying excellently how enormous this man’s vocal range really is. In the first verse alone, he goes from a low growl, all the way up notes high enough that they border on being comical. And yet, he pulls it off with a finesse that I haven’t seen in too many artists. This, coupled with a distinct lack of any sort of autotune makes this extremely impressive. The song’s driving riff is also nothing short of superb, with it being a combination of both a smaller, muted beginning, and a single chord being hit at the end, but it’s struck with such force that it ring out all at once, as if every string was hit at the exact same time, and the result is glorious. The song is littered with guitar solos, with there being no less than three at the forefront, in addition to even more superb lead guitarwork, that beautifully underscores the vocals. And some of the smaller touches added to the song, like the synths that are played during the bridges, and the quiet feedback that builds into different parts of the song serve to make this an incredibly rich song. Basically, this song is absolutely superb from a musical standpoint.
HOWEVER, these lyrics are so amazingly terrible, that it’s hard to say that this song is above a 4/10. It’s truly amazing that somebody could make such a great song, and write lyrics for it that are so bad that I have trouble recommending it. The song is more/less about our hero, Chad Kroeger stalking a girl that he likes, even after she has rejected all sexual advances.
No, I’m not kidding, and yes. It is that bad.
The rest of the album follows similarly, with all of the songs that are just straight up rock songs being very very good, except for the lyrics, which are almost consistently awful.
A few notable examples of some other great songs, that are ruined by the incompetence of the people who wrote these lyrics would be “Animals” which would be a really good riff driven hard rock song, but it sounds like it was Ghost Written my Michael Starr of Steel Panther.
Or perhaps “Someone That You’re With” which is a ton of fun. It’s fast, it’s upbeat, has one of the best choruses on the album, and is home to some incredible percussion. This is a song that could easily accompany a high speed chase or action scene in a movie but unfortunately, the song’s lyrics center around Chad being sad, because the girl that he likes is dating some other guy. He’s just bummed that she’d rather go out with some stupid Chad, than a nice guy that would treat her right. And if it wasn’t so sad, it would be a little funny. And once again, an incredible song falls victim to Mr. Kroeger’s seeming inability to write decent lyrics.
There’s a ton of other examples of this on the album, but sadly; they’re honestly somewhat few and far between. There’s just as many ballads and slower songs that come off as way too forced and disingenuous to even be slightly enjoyed, * la “Photograph”, “Savin’ Me” or “If Everyone Cared”, which are simply atrocious, and don’t have the instrumental prowess necessary to make them even somewhat enjoyable.
“Rockstar” Is a slight exception to the statement that all of the softer songs are bad, and the reason being is that ‘Rockstar” is good. The song is fine from an instrumental standpoint. It’s not anything to write home about, but by no means, is it the worst on the album. However, what makes this one enjoyable, is the fact that it’s so damn funny. Now, I know that you’re wondering what exactly makes this song funny. Well, it’s not the song itself, rather it’s the band’s explanation of it, and their fans reaction to it.
Chad Kroeger has gone on record, stating that this song is making fun of the kinds of things that other rockstars do, and they wrote it to prove that they don’t act like a traditional rockstar, in the sense that they don’t live a life of luxury, excess, and constant partying. And a lot of people believed that. However, that’s a complete falsehood. Nickelback absolutely just wrote a song about what they do, and passed it off as satire once realizing that the song made them come off as a little douchey. Just look that the line, “I’d trade this life, for fortune and fame… I’d even cut my hair, and change my name”
That is literally something that Chad did. Mr. Kroeger’s actual name is “Chad Robert Turton.” The last name “Kroeger” was completely made up, either because he thought it sounded cool, or it was his favorite grocery store. His hair was also cut, very shortly after people began making fun of his ramen hair. So basically, the song is just one big ***post, disguised as satire, but considered by most to be serious, even though the fake intent was to be satirical, even though it was deadly serious this whole time, but I digress.
I’d also like to make it clear that I’m not defending the band’s previous efforts. Every album after this has been average at best, and before this, their best album was a solid ⅗.
(That album being Curb, because at least they had something meaningful to say. I mean, holy ***, “Little Friend” is a fantastic song, no matter how you look at it)
But to wrap this review up, let’s answer the question that has been burning passionately in all of our hearts. Should you listen to this album❓
Absolutely not. You should avoid it like the plague. Sitting down, and listening to the entirely of “All The Right Reasons” would be one of the worst experiences of your life. HOWEVER, you should not avoid some of the individual songs. If you’re capable of looking past lyrics, and directing your focus towards vocals, instrumentation, and production, then I absolutely implore you to listen to some of the songs on this abomination. There’s some really impressive stuff on here, that any and all aspiring musician and/or producer should be familiar with. However, people that care about lyrics should run far, far away.
Recommended songs: Follow You Home, Fight For All The Wrong Reasons, Animals, Someone that You’re With, Side of a Bullet, and Rockstar
