Review: The Best Of Volume 1 - Nickelback
Quick facts… Nickelback hails from Canada and was formed in 1995 in Hanna, Alberta. The band is composed of lead guitarist and lead vocalist Chad Kroeger, rhythm guitarist, keyboardist and backing vocalist Ryan Peake, bassist Mike Kroeger, and drummer Daniel Adair. The band was listed number seven on the Billboard top artists of the decade, with four albums listed on the Billboard top albums of the decade.
The band's name derives from the nickel in change that bassist Mike Kroeger frequently had to give back to customers when he worked at a Starbucks coffee shop. Chad is known for telling Playboy a few years ago "I will die on my 40th birthday," he told Playboy. "I dreamed it – I'll be onstage and have a heart attack, and the crowd will think it's part of the show. It's been foretold." Chad turned 39 on the 15th of November. When he was again recently reminded about this comment, he stated he actually meant he thinks he’ll die on the inside by the time he hits 40.
Chad Kroeger began dating fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne after they got together to co-write a song. The Nickelback frontman admitted to Los Angeles DJ Ryan Seacrest it was clear he and Lavigne had feelings for each other when they started working together in the studio. "I think it evolved into this wonderful thing," he said. "When you're sitting there, singing across from somebody into the microphone and singing love songs and you start developing these feelings for that person, and it just blossomed into this thing." The two got married earlier this year.
Best tracks… “If today was your last day,” “Gotta be somebody,” “Photograph” and “How you remind me.”
What others have to say… “When faced with The Best of Nickelback, Vol. 1, the band's haters - who are legion - will be tempted to crack wise and say, "why did I expect this to be blank?" This is the canon, the songs that kept the Canadian hard rockers on the top of the charts while earning the ire of those who considered themselves to have better taste. Collected, it won't convince a soul, but it certainly does represent the sound and attitude of active rock in the first decade of the new millennium - and there's not a more listenable Nickelback album out there.” www.allmusic.com
What we have to say… We are genuinely stumped that there seems to be so many haters out there. Nickelback’s music is easy to digest whilst making rock music accessible to a wider audience. Maybe that’s where the problem lies? Maybe rock fans are a little miffed that rock music can be this easy to like? Either way, we’ve never had a problem with turning the music up in the car and there are few bands that can be enjoyed as much at top volume than Nickelback. This collection of their greatest hits proves that Chad and the boys know what their fans want. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And Nickelback sure ain’t broke… not when they’ve sold more than 50 million albums worldwide.
It makes us wanna… “Dig up old yearbooks and have a good “lag” at what everyone looked like.”
In their own words… In an interview with examiner.com, this is what Chad Kroeger had to say about touring and making music for the fans: "You've got to make sure that you give it everything, every night no matter where you're playing. And it sounds ridiculous but it's true, meaning that's what - what we want to do. And we make sure that, you know, we have a career that extends past this - whatever album you're on. So I think we've tried to pay a lot of attention to that. Hopefully, that's what makes the career. Is that there are return fans. We focused on that early on in our career, we like to kind of stick to that mantra.”
See the videos here:
Score… Turn the volume up to 8.