The Seven Deadly Sins (of Being Nickelback)

Some bands are easy to hate. Some bands are easy to make fun of. Some bands are so terrible that hating then and making fun of them is almost too easy, almost like beating up a mentally challenged child.

But sometimes that mentally challenged child spits on your shoes, and needs his ass kicked. That mentally challenged child, in today’s lesson on hatred, is Nickelback.

As you all are no doubt aware, Nickelback hails from fair Canada, where they list themselves (on Wikipedia at least) as post-grunge, a genre distinction that was disturbing enough to cause the corpse of Kurt Cobain to reanimate, shoot up a suspicious level of heroin while near Courtney Love, and shoot himself all over again.

Also all their songs sound fucking. Exactly. The. Same.

Granted, to say that actually being Nickelback would qualify as a sin might be a little out of line. It’s not like they eat babies, or that their music is the beginning of some sort of pied piper march to make the youth of America into mindless “I Wanna Be a Rockstar” liking zombies, right?

…Right?

Hmmm…

So, before Chad Kroeger and company can finish their fiendish plans to cause the Rockapalypse (see what I did there?), I shall put on my hipster pope hat (it looks like a regular pope hat, but there’s some Touch and Go Records and Decemberists pins on it, and I wrote “the pope” on it with masking tape) and discuss the 7 deadly sins.

Of being Nickelback.

Deadly Sin: Lust

“I’d like this award better if it was genitalia! Heoww!”

“You’re beside me on the seat
Got your hand between my knees
And you control how fast we go by just how hard you wanna squeeze
It’s hard to steer when you’re breathing in my ear
But I got both hands on the wheel while you got both hands on my gears
By now, no doubt that we were heading south
I guess nobody ever taught her not to speak with a full mouth
‘Cause this was it, like flicking on a switch
It felt so good I almost drove into the ditch”

~Nickelback, “Animal”

While most bands write about sexuality, and some even blatantly talk about sex, it’s fair to say that there are few bands that decide to write about road head. And while that might actually be pretty badass if, say, a real band wrote it, we have to settle for painfully obvious lyrics from a Canadian who wishes he was a hick.

“So I’ve got the greasy douche bag look, what do I need to do next to look more like a hick? Do…I won’t have to make out with my cousin again, will I?”

This song is so obvious that it makes songs by The Bloodhound Gang seem like subtle love ballads.

Lust is technically a deadly sin, but it’s the one we’re quickest to forgive after a few jack and cokes and a casual invitation to a party in our pants. But in Nickelback, it is unforgiveable for two equally important reasons.

1. They are terrible musicians
2. If they are lustful, they could possibly spawn, creating future generations of Nickelbacks, which will grow to maturity, purchase semi-trucks and shotguns, and very possibly could write new Nickelback songs.

This must be stopped.

Oh, also Chad Kroeger used to suck his own dick as a party trick.

Deadly Sin: Greed

“More money, more records, more world anguish! More! More! MORE!”

“’Cause we all just wanna be big rockstars
And live in hilltop houses driving fifteen cars
The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap
We’ll all stay skinny ’cause we just won’t eat”

~Lucife…um…I mean, Nickelback, “Tool Rockstar”

Again, most popular bands are by some definition guilty of the sin of Greed. Do The Rolling Stones really need your money so much that they’re going to charge baby boomers $120 a ticket to see them play a concert from the nosebleeds of a football field? No, but that Cessna isn’t going to buy itself, not with gas prices where they are.

No, Nickelback’s great sin is not that they’re trying to make money, it’s that, in doing so, they make songs. Their breakthrough album sold, well, far too many copies, and in their delirious greedy minds, they wanted to stay Rock and Roll stars (I heard that people in popular bands have sex with lots of women. I know, right?).

But what Nickelback failed to realize is that, in the quest of fame and fortune, they’re hurting people with their music. In a entirely non-credible and most-likely-fabricated-by-me study, self-inflicted deafenings have gone up 90,000% since the 2001 release of Nickelback’s Silver Side Up. So not only are they greedy, they’re bastards too. It’s science, you don’t even have to bother looking it up. It’s all very technical and boring. No seriously, don’t try googling it.

Deadly Sin: Sloth

Nickelback, circa 1995.  “Meowww”

“In ten minutes I’ll be laying out flat on the floor

8 minutes from losing it a little bit
5 minutes your description might be starting to fit
3 to go and I’m forgetting all that I’ve ever known
I won’t be standing up for long I better learn how to crawl”

~Nickelback, “Flat on the Floor”

Just look at these lazy fuckers.

“Ugh, it’s just so much effort to be something other than black-and-white floating heads”

“God, I’m so tired from pointing at landmine shirts, I gotta sit down”

“I’m so glad I didn’t shower for the past ever”

Go to hell, Nickelback…oh right, you already are going there. Speaking of which…

Deadly Sin: Wrath

HEOWWWWW

“Uncle Sam taught him to shoot
Maybe a little too well
Finger on the trigger, loaded bullet
He hit the stage so full of rage
And let the whole world know it”

~Nickelback, “Side of a Bullett”

What’s worse then a pampered Rock Star from Canada pretending to be like a Southern Cowboy? That same pampered Rock Star trying to say that he’s “hardcore” and likes getting trashed and starting fights. But that’s not the only reason why they exhibit the deadly sin of wrath.

The other reason? Well, they just inspire such hatred from everyone else. It takes a tool to write songs like “Side of a Bullett,” it takes a douchebag to make everyone who listens to them commit a deadly sin. Fuck you, Nickelback.

Deadly Sin: Gluttony

“First I will eat this snake, then I will eat this semi-nude woman, and then? THE WORLD!”

“And I’ve been wrong, I’ve been down,
Been to the bottom of every bottle
These five words in my head
Scream ‘Are we having fun yet?’”

Nickelback, “How You Remind Me”

Granted, this one might be a bit of a stretch, since they’ve famously documented how they’ll “all stay skinny ‘cause” they “just won’t eat”, but I think we gotta delve into a different kind of gluttony here. Booze.

Not to say that drinking in excess is a sin, in fact, in a survey of 10 doctors (where I listed myself as a doctor and surveyed myself), 1 out of 10 doctors say that heavy drinking leaves you healthier and with fewer regrets then the sober alternative.

But you don’t see me writing songs with alcohol everywhere in the lyrics. The only people who should mention liquor in songs should be alcoholic singer-songwriters, and the song should be called “The lion in the forest” where the lion is a metaphor for a bottle of scotch and the forest is a metaphor for the singer’s stomach or something.

No, Nickelback just talks about how they drink in various details. They drink to get into fights, they drink and wallow in their own self-pity, and they probably drink Budweiser ‘cause that’s the swill that Americans drink, right?

But it’s all just so clichéd. Instead of having whatever emotional impact the band assumed overindulgence of alcohol might create, they just end up sounding like that freshman at a kegger who “is, like, totally fucking wasted, WOOO!” after their first beer. And that’s sad. But not as sad as…

Deadly Sin: Envy

“…And people like Jesus, right? So…Please like me?”

“Because somewhere
the one I wanna be with’s
with somebody else
Oh god, I wanna be that
someone that you’re with
I wanna be that someone
that you’re with
And I can talk about it all day long
’til I run out of breath
But I still wanna be that
someone that you’re with”

Nickelback, “Someone You’re With”

Nickelback not only writes songs that are bland and sound the same, but at the same time, they’re kinda pussies. On one hand, they try to write the odd song about being fellated in a car or getting drunk and throwing a glass at underaged kid’s face, while on the other hand, they write the whiniest songs you’ve ever heard.

Here is the gist of about 70% of all Nickelback songs.

“I really like you, girl-who-is-involved-in-my-life-somehow”

“But we are not together romantically, and if we are, I’m not putting enough into it”

“In fact, either my inability to be in a relationship with you, or the fact that you are seeing someone else, causes me great chagrin”

“I want to be there for you, and will change to make that happen”

“I have a vagina”

Okay, maybe not that last one, but you get what I’m saying. Lonely, envious rock stars are just about the most annoying thing you can run into, especially if that band just happens to be Nickelback. But the envy wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that the sin that Nickelback is most guilty of is…

Deadly Sin: Pride

“Heyyyy, I’m awesome, right? Right?”

“I wanna be great like Elvis without the tassels
Hire eight body guards that love to beat up assholes
Sign a couple autographs
So I can eat my meals for free
(I’ll have the quesadilla, on the house)
I’m gonna dress my ass
With the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to
Blow my money for me”

Nickelback, “Rockstar” (again)

Ultimately, Nickelback is a lot like that asshole in a bar who’s loudly bragging about how much he can bench press, and then goes to talk to a woman he’s never met before and tries to come off as “sensitive” by talking about how he writes poetry. So despite all the “feel sorry for me” sentiments they try to emphasize, they really are just, in the end, arrogant pricks.

“You wanna fight? ‘Cause I totally am the strongest guy in this bar. I also am famous and shit. Yeah, that’s right, you’re impressed”

When it boils down to it, you can describe Nickelback’s evils in broad, sweeping, biblical ways all you want, but really…they just suck.

Hard

Tagged as: nickelback, Nickelback Sucks, No Seriously Nickelback is Terrible, Seven Deadly Sins, The Bloodhound Gang, The Rolling Stones, Zombies