YMMV / Nickelback

• Awesome Music: "Feed the Machine" and "The Betrayal (Act III)", to the point that even non-fans were impressed by the songs.
• Critical Backlash: Jabs at this band are so common that even people who aren't fans of Nickelback themselves wonder what exactly is so bad about them. The hate is severe enough that Deadpool himself took to calling out their haters in one of the trailers for Once Upon a Deadpool, pointing out that, among other awards and achievements, they've been nominated for a Grammy Award six times. As of the early 2020's, the intense negativity has died down considerably and people are more willing to give them praise or at least acknowledge they didn't deserve to be the punching bag they were turned into.
• Critic-Proof: The band has been widely panned by critics and were once voted the worst band of all time; there exist countless YouTube videos devoted to picking apart how all their songs sound the same. It hasn't stopped them from selling more than 50 million albums worldwide.
  Chad Kroeger: "Yeah, everybody hates us. We suck. Sure. But you know, somebody out there is buying our albums anyway."
  It's hard to get inside the existential paradox of Kroeger's life on tour: Every day, he gives interviews to journalists and radio DJs who directly ask him why no one likes his band. Every night, he plays music to thousands of enraptured superfans, many of whom love him with a ferocity that's probably unhealthy.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: "Rockstar" was supposed to be a Stealth Parody of the stereotypical rockstar lifestyle, with its intentionally over-the-top lyrics. Except it completely backfired because the song never derides the lifestyle directly. Yeah, they say you've got a drug dealer on speed dial or you'll be popping your pills from a Pez dispenser, but at the same time, it's describing the big bus you'll be riding around in with your old guitars, getting into the Playboy mansion, or dating a centerfold model and having enough money to let her spend it willy-nilly. No one's going to deny all those things sound awesome. Worse yet, the lyrics are supposed to be over-the-top, but anyone with an ear in modern society knows very well that real-life celebrities will get to enjoy these amenities and a whole lot more, too.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Daniel Adair, even people that can't stand Nickelback's music will probably admit he's an incredible drummer.
• Epic Riff: "Burn It to the Ground", "Something in Your Mouth", "Someday", "How You Remind Me", "Another Hole In The Head", "Next Go Round", "Someone That You're With", "Side of a Bullet", "Feed the Machine". "She Keeps Me Up" has a riff that's become very popular with the TikTok users.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • "Rockstar" uses the lyrics "I'm gonna sing those songs that offend the censors". When the song was released as a single, it ended up getting censored.
  • The band lambasted Guitar Hero, which, at least in their opinions, detracted people from learning real instruments. Two years later, their songs are on Rock Band. Even more amusingly, they ended up appearing on Guitar Hero anyway.
• It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: What many of their older fans (or at least admirers) think. Even those who passively enjoyed their early stuff say they were better when they were "that band who would occasionally have a song on an action movie soundtrack." And for a band with such a vocal Hatedom and so few people claim to like publicly, you'd think they'd get less airplay and make less money.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A common complaint about their music is that lot of their songs tend to sound the same from album to album. This was frequently repeated amongst critics of the band during the 2000s.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Calling them the worst band ever.
  • "Look at this photograph" ^Explanation The opening of "Photograph" has become a persistent meme in and of itself. In particular, editing the word 'photograph' and the photo in the frame to something else, like [1]. The joke is also attributed to the second line: "Every time I do, it makes me laugh". And then, of course, there's still the question that lingers: What the hell was on Joey's head?
  • In 2022, the song "She Keeps Me Up" went viral as a transition song on Tiktok, specifically the chorus.
• Misattributed Song: Not surprisingly, Chad's distinct singing style has led ignorant listeners to assume that any song with his vocals on it is automatically a Nickleback song. For example:
  • "Hero" (off the Spider-Man soundtrack) is a duet between Chad and Saliva frontman Josey Scott. The only other member of Nickleback on it is Mike on bass.
  • Chad also sang on two Santana songs, "Into The Night" and "Why Don't You And I?"^note Though due to disputes between record labels, the single version had Alex Band from The Calling providing vocals., though those are easier to differentiate once you hear Carlos Santana's distinctive guitar playing.
• No Such Thing as Bad Publicity: Arguably the biggest example in music, the hate thrown on them may be excessive (to the point it reaches memetic levels) but it's also what kept them relevant for so long. Chad Kroeger even mentioned this in an interview that while he didn't like how serious some people would take the hate, it also helped them to keep getting attention from the public and from the media.
• Retroactive Recognition: Emily Bett Rickards is the main protagonist of the "Never Gonna Be Alone" music video, which was released three years before her Star-Making Role as Felicity Smoak in Arrow.
• Signature Song: "How You Remind Me." With "Photograph", "Rockstar", "Burn It To The Ground", "Far Away" and "When We Stand Together" as close runner-ups.
• So Okay, It's Average: They're basically the McDonald's of music; sure, it's not hard to find something better out there, but it's not really bad, either. Those who don't outright loathe the band generally agree that their unpopularity isn't so much that their music is outright terrible (they have a massive fanbase for a reason) as much as not good enough for them to be as famous as they are. Most critics point specifically to Chad Kroeger's voice as the weak link, and that their songwriting as musicianship is otherwise perfectly competent, while others still say there's nothing wrong with the band themselves, but their popularity among American "white trash" types just makes them uncool by association.
• Squick: "Figured You Out." As it turns out, not a lot of people like to imagine Chad Kroeger receiving a blowjob from a girl who's just snorted cocaine.
• Vindicated by History: While they still aren't exactly the most respected band out there, Nickelback aren't as hated today as they were during the late 2000s and 2010s.

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