Line #32 Music/Nickelback


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Nickelback_3371.png]]
2
3	->''"Yeah, sure. [-(laughs)-] We suck. Our music is terrible. Everyone hates us. Chad Kroeger is the worst singer ever. I've heard it before. We've all heard it before. But you know what? These [-(points to the row of eight platinum records on his wall)-] tell me that '''''someone''''' out there is buying our music. What did what's his name say? 'I'm crying all the way to the bank'?"''
4	-->-- '''Chad Kroeger''' (actually quoting Music/{{Liberace}}, who was similarly bashed by critics)
5
6
7	Nickelback is a [[CanadianMusic Canadian]] HardRock[=/=]PostGrunge band formed by Chad Kroeger, his half-brother Mike Kroeger, guitarist Ryan Peake, and then drummer Brandon Kroeger. They're known for producing many hit songs that tend to sound suspiciously similar to each other, and Chad Kroeger's, um, [[{{Yarling}} distinctive]] voice.
8
9	Chad was engaged to fellow Canadian Music/AvrilLavigne on August 21, 2012; they married on July 1, 2013 and separated in 2015.
10
11	Their current lineup is:
12
13	* Chad Kroeger - vocals, guitar
14	* Ryan Peake - guitar, backing vocals
15	* Mike Kroeger - bass guitar
16	* Daniel Adair - drums, backing vocals
17
18	!!Discography:
19	* ''Curb'' (1996)
20	* ''The State'' (2000)
21	* ''Silver Side Up'' (2001)
22	* ''The Long Road'' (2003)
23	* ''All the Right Reasons'' (2005)
24	* ''Dark Horse'' (2008)
25	* ''Here and Now'' (2011)
26	* ''No Fixed Address'' (2014)
27	* ''Feed The Machine'' (2017)
28	* ''Get Rollin''' (2022)
29
30	----
31	!!If Everyone Troped:
32	* AllForNothing: Most of "Get 'Em Up" is about thoroughly planning a robbery... that cannot be carried out in the end because the robbers forget to check the calendar.
33	-->''The only thing I wish that one of us had known \
34	That it was Sunday and the goddamn bank was closed''
35	* AutoErotica: "Animals" features the speaker and his girlfriend getting busy in his car like "a couple animals".
36	* BandOfRelatives: Chad Kroeger and half-brother Mike. Cousin Brandon was also in the first incarnation of the band.
37	* BiblicalBadGuy: While not directly mentioned, the song "The Betrayal - Act III" is a link to Judas and his betrayal of Jesus.
38	%%* BittersweetEnding: A majority of their music videos.
39	%%* ButtMonkey: The band is on the wrong end of many jokes.
40	%%* CallingTheOldManOut: "Too Bad" and "Never Again" do this.
41	* TheCameo: Exaggerated in "Rockstar" with appearances by [[Music/{{KISS}} Gene Simmons]], Music/NellyFurtado, Creator/ElizaDushku, Music/TedNugent, Twista, Paul Wall, [[UsefulNotes/MixedMartialArts Chuck Lidell]], Taryn Manning, Music/LupeFiasco, [[GirlsOfThePlayboyMansion Holly Madison, Bridget Marquadt, Kendra Wilkinson]], [[Series/AmericanChopper the Teutuls]], Dale Earnardt Jr., Music/KidRock, [[Music/AliceInChains Jerry Cantrell]], Dominique Swain & Wayne Gretzky. This overlaps with CastingGag since a few of the guests are musicians and some of the lyrics they lip-sync relate to themselves.
42	* ChekhovsGun: Partway into "Saving Me" a statue can be seen in the foreground being lifted through the air, it comes crashing down at the end of the video.
43	* CrazyJealousGuy: "Next Contestant" is about one of these who is always getting pissed at other guys hitting on his girlfriend or worse.
44	* DeadAllAlong: The protagonist of the music video for "Someday", and the protagonist's DisappearedDad in the music video for "Never Gonna Be Alone".
45	* DeathsHourglass: The music video for "Savin' Me" begins with a twitchy-looking man saving a well-dressed man from walking in front of a car. Pretty soon, the well-dressed man starts to see what the twitchy man saw: numbers over everyone's heads, rapidly counting down.
46	* DisappearedDad:
47	** Chad didn't know about his real father until his late teens. Mike's father and his adopted father was also this and the subject of "Too Bad".
48	** The main premise of the music video for "Never Gonna Be Alone".
49	* TheDogBitesBack: "Never Again" ends with the abused wife getting a gun and murdering her husband.
50	%%* DomesticAbuse: "Never Again".
51	* DrugsAreBad: "Just to Get High" and "Worthy to Say".
52	** Kinda implied with "Rockstar".
53	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Dark Horse'' and ''Feed the Machine''.
54	* DrivenToSuicide: The lyrics to "Savin' Me" imply this, as a man is "standing on the ledge of an eighteen story." "Hurry, I'm fallin'" is sung in the background.
55	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: Both ''Curb'' and ''The State'' are much heavier and less-commercial sounding than anything the band has recorded after those albums. They were also more apparently influenced by Music/{{Nirvana}} and Music/AliceInChains than anything else they recorded.
56	* EarnYourHappyEnding: Some of their music videos, with "Far Away" and "Never Gonna Be Alone" being the most notable examples.
57	* EvenTheGirlsWantHer: Discussed in "Next Contestant"--the protagonist "even fears the ladies" coming onto his girlfriend.
58	* FailedASpotCheck: The would-be bank robbery in "Get 'Em Up" is foiled because the robbers lack one crucial piece of information: it's Sunday and the bank is closed.
59	* FondMemoriesThatCouldHaveBeen: The first half of the music video for "Never Gonna Be Alone".
60	* GreatestHitsAlbum: Two, in the forms of ''Three-Sided Coin'' ([[NoExportForYou released in Japan only]]), and ''The Best of Nickelback Volume 1''.
61	* GrowingUpSucks: "Photograph" is a reminiscence on the good moments and how things have gone wrong since.
62	* HarshVocals: Chad Kroger's signature voice is a combination of this and {{Yarling}}, though downplayed in that they're simply very guttural and not at all screechy. What's interesting is that this only applies to his [[SingingVoiceDissonance singing voice and not his normal talking voice]].
63	* HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure: The Public Policy Polling agency (gauging the popularity/unpopularity of any given politician or party) uses Nickelback as a measurement (alongside head lice and the DMV) if someone is more hated than the band.
64	* IWantSong: “Rockstar”, which is also a RockstarSong (duh), as well as a SanitySlippageSong by the end, since the narrator is popping so many pills he can’t even remember his own lyrics.
65	* IgnorantOfTheCall: In "Hero", Chad acknowledges that "a hero can save us", but that he's not going to stand around waiting for one to show up. He thus unknowingly becomes the very hero he wasn't going to wait around for, all the while denying that he's any kind of hero at all.
66	* InsultBackfire: [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/nickelback-thanks-black-keys-after-insult-in-rolling-stone-20120105 A pretty good one, too.]]
67	* IntercourseWithYou: "Next Go Round", "Animals", "Flat on the Floor", and "S.E.X.", just to name a few.
68	* LargeHam: One of the reasons people like to do mocking imitations of Chad is his over-the-top, throaty delivery.
69	-->LOOKADISS PHOTOGRAPH!\
70	It's too bad, TOO LATE! So wrong, SO LOOOOONG!\
71	'''''How the hell'd we wind up like dis?'''''
72	* LittleBlackDress: The woman in the music video for "How You Remind Me".
73	* LongRunnerLineUp: They only changed the drummer, and even then it's been the same since 2005.
74	* LyricalColdOpen:
75	** "Figured You Out" opens with Chad singing the opening line by himself:
76	--->''I like your pants around your feet''
77	** "Rockstar" has a brief one:
78	--->''[inhale] I'm through with--''
79	* MarkedBullet: "Side of a Bullet".
80	-->I cried alone and scratched your name\
81	On the side of a bullet
82	* MoodWhiplash: Often induces this from song to song. Many of their songs' content comes off as earnest and emotional and can sometimes border on SillyLoveSongs. Then they come out with a tune like [[IntercourseWithYou "Animals"]]... and many more like it.
83	%%* MotiveRant: "Where Do I Hide".
84	* MsFanservice: "Something in Your Mouth", and Chad's girlfriend in the music video for "How You Remind Me".
85	* NewSoundAlbum: ''Dark Horse'' was way darker than both of the albums before and after it.
86	** In comparison, ''No Fixed Address'' has a more electronic production style that, at least according to Stephen Thomas Erlewine of ''Allmusic'', results in their best album to date.
87	* NeverBringAKnifeToAGunfight: Mentioned in "This Means War".
88	-->But you went and brought a knife\
89	To an all out gun fight
90	* NotQuiteDead: The main character of the music video for "Far Away".
91	* OhCrap: The main characters' reaction in the last verse of "Animals." [[spoiler:He and his girlfriend are in his car [[AutoErotica getting busy]] when she realizes that her dad has found them and is standing right outside. And worse, the keys aren't in the ignition because they fell on the floor while they were in the middle of it, all while he is screaming [[{{BlatantLies}} that it was her mouth he was kissing]]]].
92	%%* OdeToIntoxication: "Burn It to the Ground" and "Bottoms Up." Subverted in "Home."
93	* OrdinaryPeoplesMusicVideo: Zigzagged in the video for "Rockstar" by Music/{{Nickelback}}; the video features a huge montage of celebrities miming the song in various locales (including Gene Simmons, Music/KidRock, Creator/ElizaDushku, Music/Three6Mafia and others), interspersed with everyday people doing the same.
94	* OutOfGenreExperience: "She Keeps Me Up" is a {{Disco}} song. The track being co-written by [[Music/MarianasTrench Josh Ramsay]] helps explain the sudden experimentation.
95	%%* PapaWolf: The dad in the video for "I'd Come for You."
96	%%* ParentalAbandonment: A common theme in their lyrics.
97	* PepTalkSong: "What Are You Waiting For?" encourages its listeners to stop dawdling and take the chance to chase their dreams.
98	* PerformanceVideo: "Never Again" originally had a video, but Creator/{{MTV}} deemed it too graphic and violent and the band reshot the video with concert footage.
99	* PrecisionFStrike In the last line of "Must Be Nice" the main line of the chorus "Your life's a God damn fairy-tale" changes to "Your life's a '''fucking''' fairy tale.
100	* RandomPasserbyAdvice: Not really "random", but while they were arranging "How You Remind Me", Ryan brought up the idea of the musical stops in the choruses. They played it a few times that way but still felt it was missing something, at which point Daniel's drum tech said "You should do a really big stop at the last chorus". They tried it, loved the effect it had on the song, and gave him a $50,000 bonus on the spot.
101	* RockstarSong: "[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Rockstar]]," but it's meant to mock the industry.
102	* RousseauWasRight: "If Everyone Cared" [[DiscussedTrope ponders what the world would be like if this were true]]. The question at the beginning of the music video point-blank wonders the same thing.
103	* SelfDeprecation: In the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbP1K-bQB6g&ob=av3e video]] for "This Afternoon", the band is brought to a fraternity party while BoundAndGagged. The fraternity leader replies: "Nickelback? You got me Nickelback?! ... Alright, fine, they'll do."
104	* SelfParody: A 2021 [[https://metro.co.uk/video/nickelback-parody-google-photos-ad-2319260/ ad for Google Photos]] uses a self-deprecating parody of "Photograph".
105	* StalkerWithACrush: "Follow You Home" has lyrics akin to a stalker coming to his crush's home despite her attempts to get rid of him.
106	* StupidEvil: "Jim" and his group in the song "Get 'Em Up", who plan to rob a bank together. [[spoiler:The bank is closed because it's Sunday, and there's a cop car parked ''right across the street'']]. Since they had to find parking a block away, ''someone'' should have noticed this.
107	%%* SanitySlippageSong: ''All the Right Reasons'' has tracks with this under tone.
108	* ShoutOut: "This Afternoon" name-drops Music/BobMarley, Cheech and Chong, and Music/CreedenceClearwaterRevival.
109	* TalkingDownTheSuicidal: "Lullaby" has the singer saving the suicidal out there who need a reason to keep living. It has lyrics such as "I have faith in you, that you're gonna make it through another night" and "the best is yet to come."
110	* ThisMeansWar: The title of the first track on ''Here and Now''.
111	* TitleTrack: Only ''Curb'' and ''Feed the Machine'' have them.
112	* TogetherInDeath: The alternate ending of the music video for "Someday"...
113	* TomatoSurprise: ...unless you've found the original version.
114	* UnreliableNarrator: "Do This Anymore" evidently has one:
115	-->''"She says I'm only tellin' half of it\
116	That's probably 'cause there's only half worth tellin' "''
117	* WolverinePublicity: A common complaint amongst the band's critics during the 2000s was that their music was getting a disproportionate amount of radio airplay.
118	* {{Yarling}}: Chad Kroeger's preferred singing style is a throaty snarling tone.

Context Music / Nickelback