Someone doesn't care for Nickleback

[uwe]

The "pants around your ankles (with something in your mouth)" is indeed a lyrical nadir even for Nickelbag's groundhugging prose standards.

Ken, do not soil my Status Quo memories!!! I saw them 1977 on the Blue for you Tour. It was my second rock concert after Blackmore's Rainbow on the Rising tour. Rainbow were excellent, but Quo were brilliant (I thought) and Francis Rossi addressed me personally from the stage. For that I will always have a soft spot for them ...

Of course they have become cabaret without Lancaster and Coughlan, but it seems that following an Alan Parker documentary on them they are considering to put the old line up together if Lancaster (who apparently suffers from MS) can still play a whole concert. If they do, I'll travel anywhere in the world to see them. Francis Rossi might still recognize me, you know!!!

[nofi]

nickleback was the band that inspired many equally lame copy bands. seether comes to mind. hell, all the vocals sound alike as do the songs to my ears. they seem to lack any 'real' emotional content or sincerity, rather manufactured angst. kind of robotic ala the cars. lastly, i don't care how much money they make. that has no place in judging the validity of someone's music. btw i love the 45 hammers idea. good band name as well.

[Highlander]

... I saw them 1977 on the Blue for you Tour...

Now I know you are somewhat envious of my having seen IGB, and we both saw that era of Rainbow, but Quo was the one that got away for me, as was Kossoff... I had the opportunity of seeing them both during that period...

Quo were the perfect "3-chord" band, end of story... I always found it rather humerous that some UK journo's thought of Foghat as the USofA equivalent and the reason why Quo could not crack the US...

[nofi]

i saw staus quo in 1974. i know why they could not crack the usa.

[uwe]

Maybe Foghat had indeed already made themselves comfortable in the boogie band niche though I find the similarities between the two bands fleeting. My guess is more with Staus Quo's lead vocals - courtesy of Francis Rossi on most singles of the band as management regarded his Brit croon more commercial than Parfitt's and Lancaster's more gruff vocals. And in Europe and Australia Rossi's more pop than classic chest-beating hard rock pipes might have indeed been the more commercial choice, but I believe in the US Parfitt's or Lancaster's vocals would have been appreciated more. That and Rossi's penchant for playing all his solos in major keys, whether the particular harmonies required it or not. Unless it's Southern RocK or The Eagles, you guys prefer solos in minor keys even where major should be played (as in GFR's Locomotion with that god-awful disharmonic Mark Farner solo using minor notes in an ostensibly major key song). Ace Frehley never quite mastered the difference between major and minor either, the neo-classical minor twin guitar harmony solo in DRC is written by Bob Ezrin.

[Aussie Mark]

You want bad lyrics?  Try Linkin Park.

No thanks.  Were they the ones who butchered Behind Blues Eyes, and left out the entire middle section?

[Aussie Mark]

Ken, do not soil my Status Quo memories!!! I saw them 1977 on the Blue for you Tour. It was my second rock concert after Blackmore's Rainbow on the Rising tour.

I did it the other way around.  Quo were my first rock concert, and Rainbow my second, both in 1976.

[uwe]

Maybe Foghat had indeed already made themselves comfortable in the boogie band niche though I find the similarities between the two bands fleeting. My guess is more with Staus Quo's lead vocals - courtesy of Francis Rossi on most singles of the band as management regard his Brit croon more commercial than Parfitt's and Lancaster's more gruff vocals. And in Europe and Australia Rossi's more pop than classic chest-beating hard rock pipes might have indeed been the more commercial choice, but I believe in the US Parfitt's or Lancaster's vocals would have been appreciated more. That and Rossi's penchant for playing all his solos in major keys, whether the particular harmonies required it or not. Unless it's Southern RocK or The Eagles, you guys prefer solos in minor keys even where major should be played (as in GFR's Locomotion with that god-awful disharmonic Mark Farner solo using minor notes in an ostensibly major key song). Ace Frehley never quite mastered the difference between major and minor either, the neo-classical minor twin guitar harmony solo in DRC is written by Bob Ezrin.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

I think they are unreasonably villiefied and have certainly carved a sound that makes them immediately recognizable three seconds into a song, so there! I bought the last three Nickelbag CDs and listen to them too though some o f the lyrics (well, most of them) are inane.

I've said if before and I'll say it again:

Nickelback lacks any of the legitimacy and soul, however diluted, of past eras' stadium rockers. I think so many people find them offensive because they are so obviously packaged and contrived as not being packaged and contrived. Uwe, you're the first person I've ever seen with any knowledge of the band that doesn't feel that they're no more a legitimate reflection of US garage rock than Britney Spears is a dance pop innovator. It's rehashed formulaic pablum that may have all of the musical elements but none of the motivation of good rock and roll. I don't even believe them when they sing about wanting to get laid.

I cannot see why the Foo Fighters are supposedly great and Nickelbag shite, their music sounds similar to me, Nickelbag's is just better produced and arranged.

Nickelback is not even in the same league as the Foo Fighters. They've never captured their power as a group well on record, but live there is absolutely no contest. Dave Grohl is one badass mofo and he put together a great band.

[uwe]

I find both bands similar in their limited grasp of the eternal harmonic rules of the holy circle of fifths. Perhaps the Cannucks are even slightly less helpless at this. But then Dave Grohl is excused somewhat, the late Herr Cobain couldn't teach him much about harmonic relationships.  

I'll go to Nirvana hell for this sacrilege, I know. ; - )

[nofi]

ah, the circle of fifths. most guys probably don't know or don't care about such things, or are playing that way but are not aware of it. hell, it's rock and roll not jazz. besides, too much theory in a rock guy can lead to...fusion. sometimes i wonder if such structural dissections in rock and roll serve any purpose other than to confuse newbies. imo rock music is a jump in with both feet and learn as you go proposition and you absorb stuff like the circle of fifths and other theory from experience, wheather you know it or not.

[uwe]

I'm a lawyer, it is crucial to know the rules you wish to break!!!

And you should have seen the amazed looks I got with my band when I proposed to play Creep (yes, the Radiohead chestnut, I have to cater to the more youngish tastes of some of my bandmates) to be played rather than in B, D#, E and E Minor (we had to transpose it from the original G key as we have a chick singer) in G# Minor, D#, C# Minor as well as E Minor and F#! It's turned the song into a blues ballad. If you know your circle of fifths then the changes I made are kiddie stuff, but the musical transition is great, yet still retains the original harmonic environment for the lead voice. I always found the original mostly major chords kind of harsh in their progression (never mind how they were lifted off from Albert Hammond's wonderful "The Air that I breathe", I believe he knew very well he was breaking the rules when he wrote that song!).

[uwe]

No thanks.  Were they the ones who butchered Behind Blues Eyes, and left out the entire middle section?

Objection, your honor, not Linkin Park, but another band with bad spelling, though neither Led Zep nor Def Lep. Limp Bizkit.

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Perhaps the Cannucks are even slightly less helpless at this.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. First two singles, juxtaposed:

 

[uwe]

There are similarities though I don't find them too overt - a lot of bands follow their first single with something similar (or are told to do it). Someday has vocally a completely different rhythm. How you remind me is certainly Cobain'esque, the other one more AORish, but then aren't Nickelbag in any case a perfect mix of Bachman Turner Overdrive and Nirvana? 

They are far from being my favorite band nor would I rush to see them, but I find the venom launched against them surprising. They've forged a sound (from other people's ingredients, but who hasn't) and have writte a few radio hits which doesn't make them The Beatles but doesn't see me rushing to switch channels. Kroeger's voice seems to split people right down the middle, I think it's neither great (little variation) nor unbearable (he can hold a tune and doesn't have too many mannerisms).