TRAINWRECKORDS: Nickelback's "No Fixed Address"

I'm not speaking for all Patrons here, but I'd sincerely be happy to pay for the debunking video you just made -- you clearly worked a lot on it, and maybe you'd like a Christmas bonus. (It feels like what I signed up to pay for when I became a Patron, y'know?) That said I can't speak for all Patrons on this, and I'd understand if others don't want to pay -- maybe you could do a poll or something?

Gordon Stearns

Scream seems like the platonic ideal of a Trainwreckord. Cornell's story ends on a massive down note, but I'm sure Todd could handle that with sensitivity.

Kristopher Bluth

I’ve been listening to “She Keeps Me Up” again and it actually has a halfway decent groove. Too bad it’s not being played by anybody but Nickelback.

Kristopher Bluth

One of the weirder "I'm so old" moments I've had over the last few years is realizing Nickelback has been around so long there's an audience of adults who grew up listening to them. Which on the one hand should have been obvious, but at the same time everything about Nickelback from about 2000-2012 feels like it took place in a singularity without any forward or backward progression no one could escape of. I think you nailed it on the head -- the worst thing about Nickelback wasn't Nickelback's music, it was how you could not get away from it. Now that we're past their heyday, it's kind of hard to remember exactly why we all thought Nickelback was the worst thing ever, when just kind of a mediocre and repetitive radio rock band. Also, as funny as it is that Nickelback released a disco song as a single, 'She Keeps Me Up' makes a lot more sense when you realize it's about cocaine -- a "Coca Cola rollercoaster" that's "on everybody's faces" and wants to do it "right here on the counter." It's still a terrible song, but it makes a little more sense when you pick up on how all the lyrics are double entendre about drugs. ps, now that the 2010s are far enough away for retrospection, a twisted part of me wants to commission a Trainwreckords about that Chris Cornell album produced by Timbaland. Speaking of ill-advised trend chasing by rockers trying to stay relevant.

Home Theater of Cruelty

Hilarious album and hilarious post-mortem, great work as always. 2013-15 was such a massive sea change for culture in general and there's just no way they could have survived even if they weren't notoriously hated among casual listeners. Some weird, weird stuff came out of that three-year stretch. IMO, 2012 was really the last year for pop music sounding "as we knew it" before the short form content revolution (Vine, TikTok) really hit its stride. Also, I met someone recently who unironically likes Nickelback mostly because it makes them nostalgic for their childhood in the 2000s. That seems to be most of their fanbase these days from what I can tell.

Henry Kiley

Did you just repost this comment you previously deleted lmao.

Jasper Phua

sorry to hear that, though lots of people do dumb shit when they're younger that they regret later in life, so if you happened to come across the band again today i'd like to think they'd apologize for what they did back then.

RedBedroomRecords

I felt like it was one of his weaker ones, a number of facts he got wrong("She Keeps Me Up" is actually about drugs and not a woman) some of his comparisons are a real stretch(seriously WTF was up with assuming that there's a crossover between Joe Rogan fans and Nickelback fans? that makes zero sense).

RedBedroomRecords

Yeah honestly I don't think this was one of your better episodes and not just because I vehemently disagree with you on this band, the episode just feels a bit unfocused as a whole and honestly i'm not sure this album even counts as a Trainwreckord(I actually did hear those songs on my radio stations quite a bit)just cause their albums aren't selling as well as anymore does not mean they aren't still famous(as albums sales in general in the mid-10s were going down). Personally I think the band's ballads are pretty damn good("If Everyone Cared" is nothing else raised alot of money for charity so that alone makes it worthwhile for me, and I would argue "What Are You Waiting For" isn't just a "love ballad" it's about encouraging you to follow your dreams and it's a song I happen to find very inspiring)for me their worst songs are the ones where they either try a genre that does not fit them at all(Southern Rock with Sister Sin) or are just badly produced("Just One More" from Get Rollin). Also I think saying that most Nickelback fans are Joe Rogan fans is a pretty massive stretch as I really don't see much crossover there at all. Also you got some facts wrong, "She Keeps Me Up" is actually about cocaine("right here on the counter" should be a dead giveaway)and most fans of the band are actually well aware of that song, I don't know many that aren't. I think they do make fun songs and I actually think Chad's voice works well for them, that helps them stand out for me, they don't come off as gross to me at all(BTW "Figured You Out" is a song many haters misinterpret frequently, it's actually about an old babysitter of Chad's and her boyfriend) Also I wouldn't jump to conclusions about that documentary, I groaned when I saw that negative reviews was by Pajiba as I personally cannot stand their reviewing style, they just come off as incredibly toxic and determined to shit on absolutely everything so for me a negative review from hem is a selling point, i'm going to see what the reviews from other outlets I actually respect say about the film.

RedBedroomRecords

If I was an extra in "Nickelback's disco video" I would NEVER stop telling that story.

Wyatt

I wouldn't worry about this script not being funny enough - every reveal in this video hit me like a truck. the unreleased CRJ collab. joey's move to nashville and the subsequent nickelbackification of country production. The hello kitty writing credits. flo rida. but mostly the CRJ collab, which I am now equally deeply invested in, oh my god unrelated: at the height of nickelback radio dominance, I was a kid who used to fall asleep in the car really often, so now chad kroeger's singing voice (amongst a whole bunch of other weird shit) has a pavlovian soporific effect on me. I feel like "sleepiness" is the only incorrect reaction to nickelback, but it's too late for me now. I also only ever caught bits of paralyzer despite it being on all the time. listening to it now, it's pretty good! this video has been highly educational and rewarding for me

big bird (not that one)

this is very funny, when read in concert with the dozen replies objecting to people saying Nickleback is bad because they mean a lot to this poster

Matt Cramp

RedBedroomRecords

I don't see the resemblance personally.

RedBedroomRecords

they're music is damn good, screw the haters.

RedBedroomRecords

they mean a lot to me, "What Are You Waiting For?" is pretty inspirational for me.

RedBedroomRecords

I really don't see the resemblance between NB and those godawful fucking hacks at all personally. I think this album is solid overall.

RedBedroomRecords

I don't think the songs are bad at all personally.

RedBedroomRecords

That's actually a really good song never got the hate for it, people in Japan liked it anyways. It was the album after that that didn't perform so well

RedBedroomRecords

I think it's a damn good song. I really don't see a resemblance to Maroon 5 at all, that's a big stretch.

RedBedroomRecords

I think most people are pretty unanimous in calling them terrible now, they make music just for commercials and their influence on the industry has been a net negative overall as sooooo many bands have tried to copy their shitty sound.

RedBedroomRecords

i'm still hoping for New Kids on the Block "Face the Music" and Scorpions "Eye II Eye"

RedBedroomRecords

I like it too, I'm just bummed the planned video for "What Are you Waiting For?" never came out as that's one of my favorite songs of theirs, I find it very inspiring.

RedBedroomRecords

I think you're dead wrong they are a good band, there's WAY worse shit out there like Maroon 5. I don't think Nickelback's lyrics are "mean-spirited" at all(can't say the same for Fallout Boy though, even as a kid their lyrics bothered me) and I think Kroger has a damn good voice and the production sounds great. "homogeneous" my ass, their albums are distinctive enough that I can easily tell the difference. No that song was not on there just for a ballad, that's blatantly untrue, i've seen a lot of comments on the video for that song on Youtube about how that song literally saved their lives so I think that alone gives it value. The notion that if an album has songs about sex it's not allowed to also have serious songs is just completely asinine, plenty of hair metal bands do exactly the same thing-Poison for example had "Something to Believe in" on the same album as "Unskinny Bop" yet it still works. Eh I like checklists do so I don't see that as a bad thing. I don't think Kroger gives a rats ass about what a bunch of internet trolls think of him LOL

RedBedroomRecords

I always wonder about the videos for these Trainwreckord tracks where the artist is chasing pop stardom. You're in a set dressed like a club and freakin' Nickelback in 2014 is wearing suits and sunglasses and playing shiny guitars. Do any of the actors and extras have any concept of how lame the product they're contributing to are? Are they just happy to be working? Are they genuinely excited to be in a rock video or to be rocking with Nickelback?

Russet Burbank

nah it was pretty good for them, it made them superstars and they're pretty happy. They aren't "bad" at all, that's a tiresome and long discredited meme, I very much doubt they are uncomfortable with their own fame.

RedBedroomRecords

HERE & NOW apparently went Platinum in the US, but I cannot name one song off it to save my life.

SPBurke

Borderline irrelevant comment from the peanut gallery, but... I kinda legit like this album. It absolutely was never gonna work in the year it came out, but I think a good number of songs on it are enjoyable, and honestly that's all I expect out of a band like Nickelback. Besides, the mere fact that their huge angry protest song was used as the theme for a WWE PPV is just the kind of sublime crossover hilarity that makes it impossible for me to hate on the source.

Alexander McKaie

This has 100% not rotten on the vine. Honestly one of your best and funniest Trainwreckords videos ever.

Gaby G

And they're re-assessing nu metal, but the sub-mediocre nu metal. Like Cold or Smile Empty Soul.

SPBurke

And "Edge Of A Revolution" cops so hard on "Sad But True" and fails miserably at it. Like, yeah, you can play in Eb or Drop D for a bit more edge, but you're still Nickelback and you guys just can't pull off heavy.

Kylie McInnes

It's like "What if Amaranthe had absolutely zero redeeming qualities."

Kylie McInnes

My band was local openers for them one night before they really broke through. They were mega assholes, and since our lead guitarist and vocalist/bassist were in the two biggest frats on campus and we brought a huge crowd (we were pretty good), we got almost the entire crowd to bail after our set when we told them how awful they were acting. We played in front of about 250, Nickelback played to about 10.

Kylie McInnes

I've been a Nickelback hater for a long time, and I can articulate exactly why: they write based on checklists. Their album DARK HORSE is mostly party songs about drinking and strippers, but in the middle it has a sad ballad about a friend of theirs who died of a drug overdose. I guarantee that song is only there because Kroeger thought "Oh we need a sad song here." It totally does not fit the rest of the album. I thought "If he was doing whiskey shots, you'd have been singing his praises two songs ago." So because they write songs in such a perfunctory way, none of it sounds fun even when they're singing about fun things like drinking and sex. Nickelback has SO many songs about sex, but Kroeger's harsh voice and clunky, mean-spirited lyrics can't make it sound sexy. And because their production-style is so sanded down and homogenous, it all just bleeds together if you listen to their albums front-to-back. Kroeger acts annoyed at the hatedom his band has built up, but not enough that it seems to consume him. He's like, "Whatever, I got paid." He wants to write hits, so he does. Fine if that's what he wants, but forgive me if I'm not interested.

SPBurke

Buttrockers vs. the Hipster Kids is a great point about rock's decline. It's also very funny that 20 or so odd years later the in the know alt kids are going to nu metal festivals. Good ol' 20 year nostalgia cycle.

sometimes mike talks

My main takeaway from this video is that fame was terrible for Nickelback. It did to them what it does to everybody: flattens their narrative into the most basic, easily-digestible pop culture version of itself. Like, yeah, they were bad, but they were bad in distinct and interesting ways that their famously-terrible-band-status glosses over. The fact that they seem to resist leaning into that status, to me, is a sign that they were pretty uncomfortable with their own fame, as well.

Shiny Skunk

Were Nickelback trying to do a djent sound? And no one stopped them?

John Rowe

Just seeing this thumbnail made me do the “100% Jeb!” pose. So excited to watch this after work today.

Christian Reiswig

Being from Detroit, the alt rock station was from Canada. I learned the reason they played certain artists and songs no matter how old was because of CanCon

Petty Officer No Class

What aggravates me most about "If Everyone Cared" is the obvious insincerity of it. The whole "...then we'd see the day where nobody died" thing is so obviously not true that it just feels like they don't really care at all... which is really bad if your song is called "If Everyone Cared".

Harro

I've been wanting this for years and it lived up to every expectation. Now just need Green Day's trilogy and I can die a happy man.

Isaac Jackson

That was well into the "cool to hate" period, but yeah, it's awful.

Russet Burbank

Honestly I thought their career was kinda dead by the time Here & Now released but I guess that one didn't do terrible even if it fizzled on pop. Daughtry tried the same approach around the same time and got a minor hit out of it only to make whatever the hell Battleships was. Eh, I'd rather post-grunge bands go the bad pop route than the Aaron Lewis route.

MikeVG

Ah, CanCon caused all these singles to be fucking everywhere up here. Was a terrible time to listen to the radio

Joey Langdon

Awesome video - Here's my other very minor technical thoughts besides the other comment about the very start. Small audio edit issue at 24:47, 24:49 and maybe 24:52 as well. Also - not sure if you meant to repeat the clip of them talking about the places they recorded during the 25th minute twice like that. 29:02 volume change seems a bit abrupt back to the music. PS. I'm so happy you used the Sickos guy from The Onion in there!

Taylor Abrahamse

...Congratulations, Todd, you've exposed me to yet another song that I acknowledge is horrible but I now absolutely adore with "She Keeps Me Up."

Lewis Lovhaug

Oh man am I so glad you brought up Paralyzer by Finger Eleven when we got up to "that" Nickelback song. I unironically love the shit out of Paralyzer and I think more bands probably *should* take inspiration from it......but......oh boy did "She Keeps Me Up" show what a truly fine tightrope act that song was. It can go sooooooo wrong so easily when you try to replicate that.

Ford Diem

Watching it! One thought - the opening video of them leaving stage after the rock is thrown at them - I can't help but think there's gotta be a higher quality copy of that out there, its just so 144p. And the watermarks from over the years don't help either. I just know viewers can be fickle, and I'd had for potential new fans to swipe away with it starting with something so low quality. Even cutting out a few seconds of it might help.

Taylor Abrahamse

Nickleback becoming 2007 Maroon 5 is absolutely hysterical to me. Wow.

Taylor Abrahamse

This one is really good, Todd. I agree with the sentiment that there's no need to reevaluate Nickelback as somehow making better music than we remember. But I will give them one thing: growing up in Canada — in Alberta, especially — meant hearing a lot of Nickelback because of Canadian radio regulations. They also played live at a lot of award shows and on Canadian television, and always seemed to deliver a really solid performance. IA well-performed fart is still a fart, don't get me wrong, but a lot of bands don't work great live (look at that Imagine Dragons clip in this video).

Nick Heer

He mentions it a bit, but when you're surrounded by the stuff (be it disco, Nickelback, metalcore, dubstep, Boy Bands, etc) it's obnoxious. When it's done in small doses it can actually be fun. Disco's a good example. We remember Donna Summer and the YMCA. We forget the Beach Boys tried to go disco and the theme to "I Love Lucy" was remixed as a disco song that actually charted.

Justin V

I thought the "backlash to the backlash" era started when Deadpool defended them while headbanging with Fred Savage. It's the 2010s version of the "Hanson look like girls" joke -- funny at first but the 1000th time you hear it you'd go buy 5 albums just to spite the lazy humor. Also, "If Everyone Cared" is the worst Nickelback song. Photograph is kinda dumb, but at least the lyrics aren't a lost song from a Care Bears movie in the 80s.

Justin V

I still sing along to “How You Remind Me” when no one’s looking and my wife thinks Chad Kroeger is kind of cute when he doesn’t have his butt rock poodle hair. There. That’s all that Nickelback means to me.

Kristopher Bluth

the 30 seconds or so after "...until this" had me doubled over and wheezing

Anthony Hansen

This is why I legit straight up love How You Remind Me; it works perfectly with his sound.

Lanth

I feel like “Funky Little Monkey” is pretty hard to beat. That whole chorus should have been scrapped.

John Sims-Jones

Great video!!!

Chris McGuire

....I think you finally nailed what the issue with Nickleback was for me. It's not that Kroeger is a bad singer--there's been plenty of great bands with middling lead singers. It's that his tone is *so dark* and there is just no way for him to shake it. If he actually leaned into it he could have been great at goth rock (I think that's probably why teenage me liked some of his early hits) but that doesn't seem like it was his passion.

Rick Griffin

I live in Canada where they are required by law to play a minimum of 30% Canadian content on the radio, and I have never heard anything off this album until now. And the radio stations up here play a lot of Nickelback

Tegan Davidson

I'm surprised you didn't show that commercial for once upon a deadpool where deadpool actually defends nickleback.

MealGin

I'm surprised you didn't mention how "she keeps me up" is 1000% about cocaine. It's probably the most on the nose (heh) "not about cocaine but actually super about cocaine" songs ever.

triggthediscovery

Don't beat yourself up regarding this episode. Just gave it a watch, and its damn good. I always love the way you cover projects like this; it feels like you're walking us through the maze rather than talking over pictures, if that makes any sense.

Alexander Williams

I considered including a clip of you saying how fragmented this was, but I couldn't find anyone else talking about it and it wouldn't really make a good example of the critical opinion, since for the most part critics didn't care

Todd in the Shadows

Todd, just so we're clear, this is a very good episode and thank you for finishing it despite all the setbacks Disco!back was so promising, in a car-crash kind of way, and then we got to Nickelback emulating Imagine Dragons, the band that helped take the heat off Nickelback so the backlash to the backlash could happen in the first place, and it's just so sad. Plenty of big time rock bands have gone pathetically pop in a last ditch effort, and somehow "how the mighty have fallen" just hits extra hard from the Look At This Graaaaaph guys

Wyatt

Five minutes in when you played the first song, I had this horrible feeling of dread, because more than the overplay the problem with the bad songs were they were still CATCHY, so they got stuck in your head. And I assumed would not escape this album review without that ...but then it didn't happen. The songs were as usual, mostly just Fine, but not memorable at all, even when batshit. As far as them covering topics like poor people, one song I do remember liking when i had a silver side up cd in middle school was "Too Bad" which felt way more sincere than this.

Katastrophe

Todd, I can't believe you of all people waited a full minute and a half into the "She Keeps Me Up" segment to invoke a Maroon 5 comparison, especially right after talking about how they were trying to emulate Imagine Dragons Also Paralyzer still rules Also never thought I'd see you come out as an "I Don't Wanna Be In Love" fan but I kinda love it

The Hand Of The People

I think an editing error at 30:27. I think the word feel got cut off. And another one at 31:33. I think that overlay was supposed to be transparent. This episode shows some sort of "Did they deserve the hate?" series would be cool. It could cover an act before they got big, the break through, the backlash, and the case against the backlash with a final verdict at the end. Yes, I realize this is basically the one hit wonderland format. So many potential episodes. Black Eyed Peas, Boy Bands, Macklemore, Country Music, Vanilla Ice if you're looking for a punching bag episode. A disco episode would be cool. The current revision of disco's history would be like if Dr Dre and Wu Tang only stayed underground and the rap that did stay popular was Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer. Then people 20 years later were all like "Why did people hate rap so much, G Funk was great!".

Adequately Sized Dog

The funny thing is, Canada was still playing them enough at this point that I heard some of this. I think this album is what taught them to stop.

General_Winter

At around 30:28, when mentioning Imagine Dragons, it cuts off you mid-sentence: "They gave me something I could f..."

Alina

Oh, I remember reviewing this back in 2014! It was a mess nine years ago too! Also, fun fact, the guy who cowrote and produced 'She Keeps Me Up'? His name is Josh Ramsay, he's the frontman of Marianas Trench (the best kept secret of Canadian pop rock with at least two classic albums), and he's been on Nickelback's boutique label 604 for a while. What you might find more interesting is that he also cowrote and produced 'Call Me Maybe' and has had a long-standing connection with Carly Rae Jepsen for years :)

Mark Grondin

There's a weird cut around 30:27, I think you're about to say "feel", but we only hear "f-" before it cuts.

Laura Robinson

Do you remember where?

Todd in the Shadows

30:27 "they gave me something I could ffff-" I assume that's supposed to be "feel".

Magik

I think that laughter at 4:49 is the most genuinely happy I have ever heard Todd being.

StrongBrush

Oh goodness, Kroeger wrote Avril's Hello Kitty song? Goodness me, that almost sets up for THAT TrainWreckords episode! Or was it the album after that which was Avril's career-killer?

Tom Carter

Finger Eleven’s “Paralyzer” isn’t really an anomaly if you listened to them back when they were called Rainbow Butt Monkeys and weren’t really known outside of Canada. Listen to “Circles”, they actually used to be pretty fun until they changed their name and became boring.

Robert Lee

I noticed a couple of times throughout the video where your voiceover cut itself off. Didn't seem intentional. This video had me in stitches by the way I cannot believe Nickelback had an indie rock whistling song and I hadn't ever heard it.

TectonicImprov

"I'm going to guess most of you didn't know this existed" - you have a Canadian audience, Todd, and we have laws that make sure we know this exists.

Alina

OH MY GOD I recognize the bard at 15:07. That's The Foxy Bard, the woman with the bodhran is his partner Twig, and I got to play with them recently at a Faire.

matttheshirt

It's actually a pretty novel experience for me to already be familiar with a Trainwreckords subject's hilariously bad single. Not entirely so since I knew Intuition and American Life and St Anger, but still. Back when this album came out Todd was still on Channel Awesome and the forums included a thread where we'd request songs for Todd to review. I don't think he ever engaged with that thread, so it was predominantly a way for us to stay up to speed with developments in bad pop music. That's where I first heard of AJR years before even Spectrum Pulse took a crack at them, much less them hitting Billboard. And that's also where I heard Nickelback's pathetic attempt to ape Maroon 5 in real time. History unfolded before my eyes that day.

Teddy Haines

LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOO

StarCannonSupernova

I'm with you. I hated Nickleback before it was coo l to hate Nickleback. "Rockstar" pissed me off everytime I heard it. Fuckin douche anthem

Petty Officer No Class

With all the back-and-forth on whether or not NickelBack actually were that bad, I wonder if we'll be having the same discussion about Imagine Dragons 10 years from now.

Tom Carter

I've been keeping up an ultimate "Worst Lines of Trainwreckords" list that includes such examples as "peñius colada", "modren man" and most recently, Ringo saying a slur with "g*****s in flight". If you are reading this, have the time, have watched this new episode, and think you know what the worst line of lyrics from the covered album is that is in this episode, I would appreciate leaving a reply with your opinion. I want to get an accurate consensus.

JasSpy

Can't wait to get home to watch this. This looks exciting

Paul Stepchenko

Yowza, I was expecting this to be the long-awaited TrainWreckords on Man Of The Woods, seeing as how JT's getting *NSYNC back together (always a sign when a solo artist knows their time is done), it's been 5 years since he dropped that defecation, and he's been focused on a lot after Britney Spears' book. So I thought this would be the perfect time for that episode. THAT SAID, this may be fun to check out! Let's give it a whirl! *listens* Holy sh- A NickelBack Disco Song was not something I was expecting to hear today!

Tom Carter

OH SHIT I CANNOT WAIT

Anthachu