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By MATT GALLATIN
Daily Arts Writer
Is This It, OK Computer, In
Rainbows, Funeral, Modern
Vampires of
the City —
all modern
classics in
today’s messy
“rock” genre.
But there is
one album
frequently
missing from
these lists
— something so necessary,
so moving, so carefully
constructed that I shouldn’t
even have to mention its name
(but I will): Nickelback’s Dark
Horse.
Everything about this album
screams nuance and genius.
Take the album art, which acts
as an intimate window into the
world we’re about to jump into: a
steel belt buckle. It’s this kind of
beaming strength and fortitude
that propels Nickelback’s
career highlight above even the
most accomplished of bands.
While Nirvana carried the
grunge era with impressive
instrumentation and subtle
lyrics, Nickelback’s Dark Horse
dominates a genre that’s even
better — post-grunge. The
album finds the band eschewing
those pompous, pretentious
styles that critics love so much
for what the world really
wants to hear: just four good-
ol’ white boys from Canada,
speaking to the good-ol’ white
boys of the world. While most
music writers and audiophiles
might see their guitar skills
as questionable, their lyrics as
shallow and their existence as
purposeless, Nickelback’s fans
know something those high-
minded fucks don’t. What that
is, though, is more mysterious
and cryptic than even the band
itself.
I’ll admit, I had some
difficulty listening to the album
in its entirety. I started to feel
a bit queasy by the third track,
“Gotta Be Somebody.” But I’m
sure that was just the norovirus
setting in from the dining
hall food I’d consumed a few
hours before, and certainly not
the result of Chad Kroeger’s
perpetually distressed vocals,
which wrap listeners like a
blanket of hearty, countryside
soil. What I did know, though,
from the few tracks my feeble
body was able to handle, was
that I was listening to the
unabridged soul of rock — nay,
music as a whole.
The band’s decision to open
with “Something in Your
Mouth” is a complex one, and
I’m still unraveling its meaning.
Kroeger proclaims the damsel in
this story is “so much cuter with
something in (her) mouth.” My
initial thought was that the song
was encouraging the woman to
utter her feelings confidently,
without the interference of a
man — a message of feminist
empowerment, if you will.
Follow-up lyric “in the spotlight
all night dissing everyone”
Looking back at the
voice of a generation
ROADRUNNER RECORDS
Look at this photograph!
A+
Dark Horse
Nickelback
Roadrunner/
Atlantic
seems to support this analysis.
My point of confusion came
when I heard Kroeger state that
the woman will “tease them
all by sucking on (her) thumb.”
In certain cultures, thumb-
sucking is a sign of disrespect,
so perhaps he’s speaking both
to the woman’s multicultural
heritage and her independence.
For North Americans, though,
thumb-sucking alludes
to childhood, so it’s not
inconceivable to think that
Kroeger is hinting at a deeper
story altogether here, one
that centers on the adolescent
experience of this woman. Such
complexities seethe throughout
Dark Horse.
Attempting to pin down
highlights on this album is
bound to be a fruitless endeavor
— they’re all highlights.
Listeners might find it difficult
to decipher one track from
another, but that simply
speaks to the consistency and
confidence that Nickelback has
with their sound. It warrants no
alteration or experimentation.
Why add confusion to
perfection?
Nickelback’s most compelling
skill, though, is their ability to
create a community through
the medium of music. There
are few places in the world like
a Nickelback concert, where
a 40-year-old-plus, white,
feminazi-hating suburban dad
can find so many other people
just like him. That unifying
sameness is a powerful tool, and
one that Nickelback should not
— and does not — take lightly.
Dark Horse is their gift to the
world, sure, but even more so
it’s a love letter to Nickelback’s
fan base. Reverence to followers
is a necessity, and one that
many bands fail to account
for. Nickelback makes no such
mistake.
Some of those previously
mentioned pompous critic
fucks have mistakenly accused
Nickelback of creating nothing
more than reductive, cliché hard
rock music. But I ask: could
the five million people who
purchased Dark Horse have all
been misguided? When have
millions of people ever been
misguided? That’s right: never.
Editor’s Note: This is part of an
April Fools parody B-Side issue.
Don’t beat up Matt for his bad
opinions.
ALBUM REVIEW
4B — Thursday, March 31, 2016
the fool-side
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com