It was February 2nd, 2017, when I did something that I had never even considered doing before. I opened Spotify, and – excitedly – loaded up Nickelback’s latest single.
What have I become?
It was a similar experience – but in reverse – with another recent single of a band who also had importance during my teenagerhood. Contrary to usual – upon hearing Linkin Park’s new song, 'Heavy', I found myself utterly disinterested in hearing anything more, or listening again.
Now, this isn’t some sort of ‘I LIKED THEIR OLD STUFF BETTER’ type rant, full of obtuse complaints and lack of open-mindedness – for example, I’m loving BMTH’s direction these days, if that helps argue my point – but I think there’s a level where ‘new direction’ becomes confused with ‘bland and generic’. I think that 'Heavy' is guilty of the latter – and I think that Nickelback…at least, much of their early work, was the same.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dmQ3QWpy1Q&w=853&h=480]
I was never really a Nickelback ‘hater’. I didn’t necessarily love their music, but I thought the hate train was unoriginal and strangely mean-spirited. This often turned into me defending the band…even though, again, I wouldn’t identify as a fan. It was simply that I found the mob mentality to be…kinda gross, tbh.
But, you can imagine how VINDICATED I felt when hearing Nickelback’s new single, 'Feed the Machine' – with its (vaguely) Djenty riffs, groovy verses, and a chorus that wouldn’t feel out of place in a hardcore song…barring Kroeger’s distinctive vocals.
I’m not saying that the song, in a vacuum, would be categorised as ‘djent’ or ‘-core’, but considering that this song is being released by the main-est of mainstream rock bands, I think that what exists should be considered a wonder of the modern world. I mean, just listen to that bridge at 3:10 – it’s like Willie Adler just walked in and wrote some redneck groove metal chugs, then Mark Morton came in and wailed over it and Nickelback just went ‘screw it, we’ll leave it in’ and decided to write the whole song around it.
All in all – I’m actually looking forward to Feed the Machine (releasing June 9, for those counting), and that in itself is…something I’m finding hard to believe.
Feel free to @ me any thoughts / disagreements / general trolling:
Twitter: @parenteswagking
Instagram: @parenteswagking
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVU--O29oY&w=853&h=480]
