Billboard names Nickelback top band of decade

Canwest News Service
December 11, 2009

Nickelback is the top group of the decade, according to Billboard magazine.

Rapper Eminem has been named the top artist of the decade, and 'N Sync garnered the title album of the decade for its bestselling No Strings Attached (2000).

Nickelback was the highest-ranking band of the decade, only finishing behind solo artists Eminem, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Beyonce, Nelly and Usher, for overall impact and importance.

Despite a distinct lack of critical acclaim, the rock band formed in Hanna, Alta., has sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. In the last decade, it released The State (2001), Silver Side Up (2001), The Long Road (2003), All the Right Reasons (2005) and Dark Horse (2008), which has garnered them a 2010 Grammy nomination for best hard-rock performance for the track Burn It To The Ground.

"We've just accepted that we're never going to be the critics' darlings, and we're OK with that," frontman Chad Kroeger told Billboard in 2007.

But it's not only music reporters who disagree with Billboard magazine's assertion.

Readers of the U.K.'s Word Magazine recently voted Nickelback the worst band in the world, with Kroeger and company locking down an impressive 20 per cent of the vote. Looks like not everyone is a fan of philosophical song titles such as Something in Your Mouth and S.E.X.

Sample lyrics: "Maybe in the parking lot / Better bring your friend along / Better rock together / Than just one at a time / S is for the simple need / E is for the ecstasy / X is just to mark the spot / 'Cause that's the one you really want."

From top group of the decade to worst band in the world — only Nickelback could be so polarizing.

© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

i think i speak for everyone when i say...

Spoiler: show

well billboard bases shit on album sales and radio play, so i can see why theyd pick the nicklebacks

I don't own albums by any of these people and I'm OK with that.

exactly, its not a big deal, makes sense

looks like the terrorists have won after all

It's because assholes like us questioned the Patriot Act.

This would have been a great post if you'd only crossed out "the Pat" and left "riot" untouched.

On behalf of all of Canada, I would like to formally appologize for this whole mess.

Yah.

You ruined Christmas, Matt.

Nickelback sucks on frozen diarrhea

Detroit Fans Petition Against Nickelback
Band's halftime performance at Lions' annual Thanksgiving game 'is completely unfair' to the team's fans, online petition says.

By James Montgomery

It's not exactly breaking news that Nickelback tend to elicit a certain level of, uh, acrimony from music fans (perhaps they've never heard "Bottoms Up"?), but up until now, we thought they were pretty cool with fans of the Detroit Lions.

Apparently not. Or at least not with Lions backer Dennis Guttman, who has started an online petition asking the team to scrap a planned Nickelback performance during halftime of their annual Thanksgiving game — mostly because, for the first time since the Barry Sanders heyday, the Lions are not abysmally awful (they're 6-2), and their Turkey Day tilt against the undefeated, Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers will have the eyes of the nation firmly fixed on the Motor City.

"This game is nationally televised; do we really want the rest of the U.S. to associate Detroit with Nickelback?" Guttman wrote. "Detroit is home to so many great musicians and they chose Nickelback?!? ... This is completely unfair to those of us who purchased tickets to the game. At least the people watching at home can mute their TVs. The Lions ought to think about their fans before choosing such an awful band to play at halftime."

To be fair, maybe Aretha Franklin, Bob Seger, Kid Rock, Jack White and/or Ted Nugent passed on the Lions' offer. It's not exactly clear if the team will actually listen to Guttman's plea (a spokesperson for the Lions did not respond to MTV News' request for comment on the matter), though, at press time, more than 35,000 disgruntled fans have signed the petition.

Reps for Nickelback did not respond to MTV News' emails about the petition, though last week, when the band stopped by the newsroom to talk about their upcoming Here and Now album (before the Thanksgiving performance had been announced), they spoke about ignoring the jabs from their detractors and focusing squarely on servicing the fans that have made them one of the biggest rock acts on the planet — online petitions be damned.

"When you play a Nickelback show, I mean, there is every range of person that you could possibly imagine on the face of the earth [in the audience], and you couldn't peg one on the street to save your life," frontman Chad Kroeger said. "I think we can all pick out a Slipknot fan, but it's tough to pick out a Nickelback fan, because they're all so different."

I find this quote hilarious. The gist of it is, "You can spot a freak a mile away, but regular people like our fans are everywhere!"

It's a shame that bad taste isn't a more outwardly visible characteristic, otherwise I doubt Nickelback's fans would appear as "different" from each other as this doosh thinks.

there's hope for detroit after all

I'd love to know how they got that '..get my drugs for free' line in that song Rockstar, on the radio...