The only thing more boring, predictable, and middle of the road than Nickelback is making jokes about how boring, predictable, and middle of the road Nickelback is.

The only thing more boring, predictable, and middle of the road than Nickelback is making jokes about how boring, predictable, and middle of the road Nickelback is. No shit, you don’t appreciate the popular butt-rock stylings of the one band that we’ve all collectively agreed is fair game to rip on despite their overwhelming success? What a refined ear-palate you must have there maestro. Did you matriculate at Juliard or Berklee?

I’m not even anywhere remotely near what you’d call a Nickelback fan, although I do like that one “Lips of an Angel” song, but I am a fan of not reading the same jokes over and over and over and over and over again forever. In case you don’t have a really shitty news feed like me, the story is that Nickelback were rumored to have been selected as the performers for the half time show at the NFL Thanksgiving game in Detroit between the Lions and Greenbay Packers. The petition, which you can find here, and has been signed by nearly 40,000 people at this point, reads:

This game is nationally televised, do we really want the rest of the US to associate Detroit with Nickelback? Detroit is home to so many great musicians and they chose Nickelback?!?!?! Does anyone even like Nickelback? Is this some sort of ploy to get people to leave their seats during halftime to spend money on alcoholic beverages and concessions? This is completely unfair to those of us who purchased tickets to the game. At least the people watching at home can mute their TVs. The Lions ought to think about their fans before choosing such an awful band to play at halftime.

“Also, what’s the deal with people who cut you off in traffic? That really gets my goat,” probably should have added.

The only thing easier to make jokes about than Nickelback (up until this season) was the Detroit Lions, who were the Nickelback of NFL teams, except not really if you compare record sales to winning actual games. The NFL is essentially the Nickelback of sports leagues itself anyway, and half time shows at football games are the Nickelback of music. So this is basically Nickelback playing the Nickelback at a Nickelback game. No wonder it’s so easy to make fun of.

Naturally, a lot of serious-minded music aficionados are doing a good job of explaining why this hypothetical 8-12 minute interlude in the middle of their televised, hyper-corporate athletic contest between spoiled millionaires who hate everyone in the stands is such a grave miscarriage of critical justice.

As a professional music producer/engineer/songwriter and lifelong Lions fan, I am disgusted with the choice of Nickelback as a representation of music and culture in Detroit. Our city is famous for the creation of an entire genre, Motown, very few cities can make this claim. Not to mention very strong hip-hop, dj, and rock and roll scenes.

I’m from Alberta, home of Nickleback, and I would like to stop them from performing anywhere else. They have been giving Canadians and Albertans a bad name since they puked out that ‘How you remind me’ thing way back when, and I think it is time they are stopped.”

It should be a Detroit artist!!!!!!!! We are the home of Motown, Kid Rock, Eminem, Bob Segar, Ted Nugent and the White Stripes to name a few!!!!

Everything above [sic], and LOL @ a single one of those acts being any better than anything else in the world nevermind Nickelback, who, let’s not forget, as their Wiki points out “are one of the most commercially successful Canadian groups, having sold almost 50 million albums worldwide, ranking as the 11th best selling music act of the 2000s, and is the 2nd best selling foreign act in the U.S. behind The Beatles for the 2000′s.”

Because he’s poor, you see?

Admittedly, that is pretty surprising. But keep in mind, as bad as Nickelback may be, your basic person is just as predictably shitty. Nickelback are so popular for a reason, it’s because we’re all Nickelback ourselves. Making Nickelback jokes makes you the Nickelback of people then, and every snide jab on Twitter and Facebook is like having to sit through a never-ending half time show of hackery. Where do I sign the protest against you?

I’m just suggesting we be a little more circumspect in the things we choose to point our shit-cannons at is all. Just because something sucks doesn’t mean you’re required to point it out. Hey, check this joke out: “You know what I hate? Stepping in dog shit.”

I was just reading a story about Mark Twain in Harper’s, which I point out so you know how smart I want you to think I am. This is what he had to say about talking shit in his biography:

“This book is a not a revenge-record. When I build a fire under a person in it, I do not do it merely because of the enjoyment I get out of seeing him fry, but because he is worth the trouble. It is then a compliment, a distinction…I do not fry the small, the commonplace, the unworthy.”

Mark Twain just called you boorish, and he was right. My only regret in this whole thing is that we didn’t have social media around back in the nineties. I would have loved to have seen all the amazing Hootie and the Blowfish gags you guys could’ve punched up.

-LUKE O’NEIL
PutThatShitontheList.com
@LukeONeil47

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