Analyzing Nickelback, Part One: ‘Photograph’

This is the first in a multi-part series where I try to analyze the feelings of hatred I harbor toward Nickelback, a band I seem to spend more energy disliking than would be required to pretend they simply did not exist. I will do this by subjecting myself to the band’s songs, videos and maybe some other materials. Feel free to email me analysis suggestions at srm5082@gmail.com.

I’m being honest? I used to dig the song ‘How You Remind Me’ when I was in sixth or seventh grade. Then, I was really into that ‘Hero’ song Chad Kroeger did with Josey Scott (the singer from Saliva). Like, really into it, though I maintain this had to do with my slight obsession with the Spider-Man movie for which it was the theme song. If I’d had YouTube back then, I probably would’ve watched and re-watched the video they made for that song, which was mostly Kroeger and Scott singing on a roof with occasional shots from the movie spliced in.

So, I didn’t always hate Nickelback. I liked them when I was in middle school, a period of my life when I thought George W. Bush should be a president, and when I would get in fights with my brother where I would vehemently oppose his viewpoint that Conor Oberst was a better lyricist than Chris Carrabba. I also wore Fubu wave caps and wanted my Mom to let me get my hair braided so I could be more like Allen Iverson. What I’m trying to illustrate is that three-year period was one where I experienced temporary insanity.

I can’t tell you when I started to dislike Nickelback. There’s not a precise moment that stands out. It was probably something that built up over time, as I began to realize how awful their lyrics were, how every song sounded cheaply similar. This happened during a time when I really started to value lyrics and music in general, and my distaste probably had to do with hearing Nickelback songs EVERYWHERE when I knew there were so many amazing artists out there who were getting no mainstream love.

It got worse a few weeks before my 2006 high school graduation,  when my classmates and I got to vote on a class song. We were given a slip of paper with five choices, one of which was ‘Photograph.’ I do not remember any of the other choices, but I do know that Vitamin C’s ‘Graduation’ was not one of them, and neither was Alice Cooper’s ‘School’s Out,’ so I wrote in the Ben Folds cover of Dr. Dre’s seminal and timeless classic ‘Bitches Ain’t Shit’ and hoped for the best.

A majority of my classmates picked ‘Photograph,’ despite it being a song wherein the (alleged) protagonist openly admits to not having even graduated from high school. Talk about cheapening a moment that is (supposedly) one of life’s most important. I wonder if any of them picked it just so they could be reminded for the rest of their lives that, in at least one way, they outdid Chad Kroeger. I recall complaining to my Mom and also to my print media teacher about the selection. Mom was nonplussed—not her class, not her problem—and she told me her class song was ‘Stairway to Heaven.’ That did not make me feel better. Teach said she ‘kind of liked it.’ This is how I knew for sure it was a terrible song.

I think this was when I started to hate the band.

Since then, I’ve been pretty vocal and serious about my Nickelback hatred. A while back, one of my friends asked me why I hate them so much. All I could say is that their lyrics are terrible and their songs sound the same. You could say that about a lot of bands I feel merely indifferent about. Some I actually enjoy may fit this mold, as well. I started to wonder if maybe I’ve just been an insolent douche this whole time about Nickelback, if maybe I’ve just been drinking too much haterade and directing the side effects toward those distortion-using Canucks for no reason. If I have, then I’ll issue a mea culpa. To find out, I’ll subject myself to many things Nickelback. I’ll either dispel my hatred for them, or I’ll be able to form a clear thesis on why that hatred remains, if it does.

First up: an analysis of the song and video, ‘Photograph.’

:01 — The video opens with Kroeger holding a photograph to the camera and urging the watcher/listener to look at it. It hadn’t occurred to me until just now how much this song relies on people to either be looking at something (i.e. the objects in the music video) or visualizing what Kroeger is pointing out—his photograph, house, school, what that dude Joey is wearing, arcade, etc. This would be fine, except for the fact that Kroeger does not provide any details about these objects. You just know they are there, and that you’re supposed to be checking them out.

:09— Red eye in photos occurs ‘when using a photographic flash very close to the camera lens (as with most compact cameras), in ambient low light,’ according to Wikipedia. (eff SOPA/PIPA amirite?) Also, the sclera, or white part of your eye, can get red/bloodshot as a side effect of smoking marijuana. One, the other or both could be the answer to the question, ‘How did our eyes get so red?’

:12— Nobody knows what in the hell that is on Joey’s head. Probably a hat. Maybe a coon skin cap (which I suppose is a variation of a hat). Could be a bike helmet. Nobody knows. This was clearly just a line inserted because Kroeger wanted something to rhyme with ‘red.’ He didn’t pull off the rhyme-a-bunch-of-random-shit-and-hope-people-dig-it songwriting style as well as the Lyte Funky Ones, who executed it brilliantly and with seemingly no effort. Example: Shoobie doo wop and Scooby Snacks/ I met a fly girl and I can’t relax. Next. Level. Shit.

:15— Kroeger/the protagonist he is portraying wants to show you the house where he grew up. The present owner may or may not have fixed it up, but Kroeger leans more toward the hypothesis that he has.

:30— The school in the video is called Hanna. Kroeger did indeed grow up in Hanna, Alberta. One would assume this is where he really went to school, and that the decrepit gym he and the band begin playing in is where he had to do whatever it is Canadians do in gymnasiums. There is shit strewn about everywhere in this room. Looks like it could never be used for basketball, and I guess maybe it wasn’t since Steve Nash didn’t grow up in Hanna and is the only Canadian person to ever play basketball. (I didn’t mean that literally, Jamaal Magloire.)

:45— He wonders if it’s too late, if he should go back and try to graduate. (Why I think this is a terrible graduation song.) Makes me think of Never Been Kissed a little bit. If there was a reality television show wherein Chad Kroeger went back to his alma mater to get his degree, I would watch the fuck out of it. You know the soundtrack would be all Nickelback and, like, Theory of a Deadman, and there would be all of these dramatic, slow motion cuts where Kroeger is having an inordinate amount of difficulty with a Trig test he needs to pass if he wants to walk with his classmates and avoid the black hole that is summer school. Also: I envision him getting put in detention for doing that weird growling/moaning thing he does in his songs, because it was weirding all the girls out when he was doing whilst decorating cupcakes in Home Economics.

1:16— I just realized I have very few memories of walking out the front door of my parents’ house. My usual point of egress was the garage…

1:42— There is a guy in a Canadian tuxedo walking through a junkyard. That is all.

1:58— I hope the dude rocking out with his acoustic on top of that truck is the truck’s owner. I would’ve been real pissed if somebody tried to stand on my car like that. I hate when people don’t respect others’ belongings. The only time I’ve punched someone in the face who is not my older brother was in seventh grade, when this kid put on my new Iversons and started running around outside with them. Just had a flashback, and now I’m pissed off all over again. (NOTE: Two Iverson references in a blog post about Nickelback. I’m confident this has never been done anywhere else.)

2:12— KISS HER MANNNNNN. KISS HER IN THE TRAIN YARD YOU DIRTY, DIRTY DOG!!!!!

2:14— I’m now thinking about the first girl I kissed. She is about to have her first child (the first apple of Kroeger’s eye has had a couple), and I have not seen her since I don’t know when. I’m starting to empathize with a Nickelback song. My friend also just informed me Kroeger has cut off his goofy golden locks. I feel the hate slightly dissipating.

2:22— The aforementioned weird growling/moaning? Yep, right here.

3:25— If Kroeger could relive those days, he knows the one thing that would never change…BUT HE DOESN’T TELL US. How is he going to leave us hanging like that? Why hint that you know about it when you’re not going to tell us? The hatred is back.

CONCLUSION: This is a terrible song, as I’d suspected. It doesn’t make me look forward to the next song I’ll make myself listen to repeatedly. It gets 2 out of 10 THROATY GROWLS, ’cause of the brief moment of empathy and the kissing.