ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons defends Nickelback

never listened to them but I know it is a whole lot better than I can do...

 

That's nothing. My roommate in the navy had one cassette. One. He was from Boston so, yep, his one cassette was the first Boston. Absolutely hate that to this day!

 

Maybe he's referring to the long beards. They had normal-length beards through most of the 70s. I don't think it was until Deguello that they started to reach cartoonish lengths.

As for the Nickelback bashing, I always thought they were awful, but they're really low-hanging fruit at this point. Not exactly a ballsy target.

 

A college friend hated U2 solely because he once took a car trip with a kid who played one of their albums over and over and over the whole time - AND played along on harmonica (badly)!

 

Like I said, talent and ability are not "cool" or "sick" and being the underdog is, especially if the underdog lacks talent and ability but has a good gimmick to be "sick" with.

Lame must be the new slang for "talented and popular".

 

You're still not making much sense.

 

Nickleback just are an entity that play and write "safe" sounding generic rock because their is an audience of people who like that kind of stuff. More power to them, generic and boring rock apparently is a cash cow

 

Being over your head doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't make sense, it just doesn't make sense to you.

 

I still think Billy's best tone was on "Recycler". That album is definitely one of my desert island picks. His tone on that album is just plain viscous.

 

Except you're not "over" anyone's head right now. You're actually just not making much sense.

 

Correctamundo. I checked the album sleeve. Gibbons and Hills beards were about half length. But Beard had a beard so the total band beard volume was pretty high.

I was listening to Nickelback last night so I can participate in that conservation.

 

Enjoy!

 

By lame I simply mean it's lowest common denominator rock. It has nothing to do with what's perceived as cool or not cool. My personal "underdog" bands are groups like King Crimson that would wipe the floor with Nickelback type bands talent-wise but also are not what the average person would call "cool" either. A band like STP, for example, had many hits but didn't use cliched, safe chord progressions and other formulaic corporate tricks. Popular but there's still plenty of musically intellectual meat in there.

 

Nickelback are like many corporate arena rock bands from over the years who make music with the sole purpose to make money.

This was confirmed for me during a benefit concert for the Alberta floods when they were the only band who would not allow their performance to be broadcast because the concert was also being streamed on the net.

Other performers like Loverboy, Jann Arden, Tom Cochrane, Ian Tyson and numerous others had no problem but the boys in Nickelback did. This was at a benefit concert in the province where they started their careers, in a city only a couple hours drive from their home town.

Never liked them, and with that kind of attitude they can go pound sand.

 

As opposed to all the REALLY COOL bands who take vows of poverty and play for free and refuse to play to large audiences when they get the chance, eh?

It is also cool to say "corporate rock".
Just rolls of the tongue. .... corporate rock..... corporate rock.......

 

Seems someone missed the point of my post.

Substitute "dull, boring, unoriginal" for "corporate", then re-read the rest of the post slowly.

 

Ok, so your OPINION of that particular band is that they are dull, boring, and unoriginal. I think you established that. But others may think otherwise.
And, others may like that one single band out there playing all over the world under various names and signed to various agencies that is the faceless monotheist "corporate arena rock band".

As if somehow being talented , artistic, and popular enough to actually become a corporation and draw big enough crowds to play arenas is a bad thing. And of course some absurd notion that truly "artistic"bands would NEVER allow themselves to play to huge crowds and make huge money. Because that would just be not cool.

I have a feeling if Nickleback had never gotten the huge popularity they did and remained underdogs those who now condemn them would be hailing them as the biggest musical geniuses since Mozart.
Again, I personally don't care for their music, but I see talent in it. And I understand why they are popular.
I don't find that I don't like their music just cause to question their artistic integrity.
It is indeed possible to admire the abilities of someone whose art you don't particularly appreciate..........

 

Nickelback sucks.

 

You left out "shallow".
Nickelback is to rock as the Star Wars soundtrack is to classical.

 

If Nickleback weren't so popular I doubt those people would hail them as geniuses like Mozart.

There would just be fewer people that know about them and subsequently fewer people that see their music as generic.

 

Christ on a cracker, man, don't compare the genius of John Williams to Nickelback.

 

Apparently a LOT of people (not particularly me) think they're quality music:

 

Lots of people think lots of dumb ****.

 

Fine, Mr. Avril Lavigne is the greatest Les Paul playing leader of the greatest cannon blowing, fire and explosion shooting rock band ever to sell 50 million records.

Here is the point of my post.

You are a well known local band. You agree to play a benefit concert after a natural disaster in your home province. The concert is being broadcast locally, and streamed on the Internet. Everyone else performing seems to know this well in advance. Just before you are live on stage you insist that your performance not be shown on television or on the Internet.

I suppose it would have been OK for NBC to just cut away to a cooking show or something else when Bon Jovi or Billy Joel were performing during the Sandy Benefit?

What kind of tools agree to perform in a benefit concert and then demand that the performance not be shown? The kind who are more concerned about money.