VANCOUVER – ENTERTAINMENT – The Canadian band Nickelback is an internet sensation and has been so for a couple of years now. While the band gets plenty of love from the millions of fans that it has, it also gets a lot of hate from people online and in different positions in society. When you reach the point where you get the opportunity to record, sell and perform your 9th career album on huge stages across the world, one might argue that you’re pretty popular. However, when the Canadian police makes fun of you and threatens people that drink and drive with a listening session of your music on the way to the station, it’s easy to disagree. Just like Nickleback, you might be confused as to what the origin of this duality is and why do people love them but also hate them with a burning passion.
In modern days it has become the norm to hate on the Canadian rock band and to publicly display your hatred towards the band. This gave birth to countless internet memes and jokes about how bad the band is. Even fellow musicians like Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and formerly Nirvana had contributed with a joke of his own at the expense of his Canadian brothers in arms. But when you look at the band’s record so far, you’d be amazed. All this hazing and joking around might get one thinking that Nickelback hasn’t sold one album in their career. Check out these statistics to be proven the contrary:
- Since their 1995 debut, Nickelback sold 50 million records worldwide
- The band has performed in front of over 8 million ticket paying audience members
- They’ve booked massive shows including 10-date arena tours
- Nickelback holds the honor of having last decade’s best selling rock song in How You Remind Me
- They’ve outdone Joni Mitchell and Neil Young (put together) in terms of number one albums in Canada, holding a total of 5
So all that considered, what makes the hatred pop in the eyes of those who see the band on the big screen or on the big stage? Many would say that it’s the internet. The band came to significant mainstream success in a time when the internet wasn’t as prominent as it is today. What that means is that back then, TV played a much larger role in how music was distributed and perceived, with music channels taking the gross of distribution instead of YouTube or other internet sources.
Now however, music is hard focused on the internet side when it comes to promotion, distribution and even listening to music. But the internet is also a place where everyone has a voice and many people don’t shy away from letting you know that. The internet is well known for its ability to produce people with what seems to be little regard for the real world in terms of filters. So when such people are givne the opportunity to say how they view Nickelback, this is the result more or less. Music is subjective and everyone is free to love or hate bands. However, Nickelback had the bad luck of being on the receiving end of an ongoing joke that just kept feeding on itself. That being said there are many people that aren’t ashamed to admit that they like Nickelaback so if you choose not to mind other people and rock out to their music, you can even get some cool ringtones here.