Nickelback. AKA "That Group That Makes My Ears Bleed"

I am pretty lenient about the music I listen to (in the presence of others, at least. When I'm by myself, I don't "listen to music" as much as I "skip through songs until I find one I like"). I can tolerate bad songs if I like the artist (half of Mariah Carey's new stuff), and I can tolerate bad artists if I like the song (anything by Miley Cyrus. Or Ke$ha. Damn her for having catchy songs!). But if a song or artist violates both aspects, then the only thing I can do is make sure I never have to listen to them again. Such is the case with Nickelback.

Where to begin with this group? I guess we'll start with the artist. The lead singer of the group has a raspy voice that sounds like it had been through years of smoking and other similarly awful traumas before being used for singing. That's a definite strike one. There's that old saying “Those that can't do, teach,” which would lead me to suggesting that he becomes a music teacher. Well, even music teachers can sing well, so I don't really know what to tell him.

And then there are the songs... or as I like to call them, lyrical procrastination at its worst. Have you ever looked closely at the lyrics to a Nickelback song? Here's the first verse to “Photograph”:

Look at this photograph

Every time I do it makes me laugh

How did our eyes get so red?

And what the hell is that on Joey's head?

I don't know whether to laugh at the fact that the first graders I used to tutor could write better lyrics than this, or cry at the fact that crap like this is considered good in the pop world.

Going back to a previous example of a song I tolerate, Party in the U.S.A is only a good song at a club, when everyone is wasted and sings along like they're all teenage girls dancing in front of their mirrors singing into a hairbrush (given my gender and current status as a member of the work force and not a teenager, my assumption that teenage girls do this is most likely incorrect... but it got the visual in your head, didn't it?). But a song by Nickelback is painful to listen to when you're sober and in the car, when you're at work listening to music online, or even when you're wasted and at a club. In fact, if I ever heard Nickelback playing in a club, I would probably start a boycott right then and there until the DJ issued a formal apology for having bad taste.

The only other song/artist that comes to mind that I have this strongly a reaction to? "LOL Smiley Face" by Trey Songz. I have nothing against him, I just hold a strong moral standpoint against using emoticons as lyrics.