Nickelback Fans Are Furious at Nickelback for Finally Selling Out
Fans drinking vodka sodas instead of Monster tallboys. Matching suits and mirror-encrusted guitars. A funky man who addresses adult humans as "children," like he thinks he's Prince or something. Vocoders, syncopation, silly glasses. This is the deeply strange universe presented in Nickelback's new video, and fans are not happy about it.
In case you're sitting at work or otherwise incapable of watching, the lyrics excerpted here should be sufficient for conveying the extremely sexy vibe of Nickelback's new glammy disco-rock single "She Keeps Me Up" and its attendant video.
Funky little monkey, she's a twisted trickster
Everybody wants to be the sister's mister
Coca-Cola roller coaster
Lover her even though I'm not supposed to
Setting aside a litany of legitimate questions about the song itself—Is the sexy sister literally Chad Kroeger's sister? Why isn't he supposed to love her? (Because she's his sister?) Should we be concerned that the "funky little monkey" of Kroeger's fantasies happens to be played by a black woman?—let's enjoy the befuddled reactions of Nickelback's diehard fans, who have been riding a Coca-Cola roller coaster of emotion since the video's release.
Among longtime devotees of Kroeger and the boys—a band whose every release since 2001 has gone platinum, and who have appeared in at least one TV commercial—a rallying cry is beginning to sound: sell-out! What, is Iggy Izaelia going to be on the next album????
Ah, the old "what were we thinking disc." A classic pitfall, known to all in the music industry.
But as easy as it is to point and laugh at Nickelback along with everyone else—and there is certainly plenty to laugh at in this video—I can't help but begrudgingly admire a band that's willing to alienate even its most passionate defenders, especially when that band is already among the most reviled in the world. If we're lucky, these funky little monkeys will keep on making "what were we thinking discs" from now until they play their final power chords.
