The photo at right is a screencap from Nickelback’s latest video, “If Everyone Cared,” which intercuts sombre in-studio shots of the band performing with various facts and figures about people who changed the world in the face of major oppression. (Like Nelson Mandela.) The song boasts lines like “If everyone shared and swallowed their pride/Then we’d see the day when nobody died.” Here’s the problem with this apparent do-gooder stance:
I like your pants around your feetI like the dirt that’s on your kneesAnd I like the way that you still say pleaseWhen you’re smiling up at meYou’re like my favourite damn disease…
And I love the way you pass the chequeAnd I love the good times that you wreckI love your lack of self-respectWhen you’re passed out on the deckI love my hands around your neck
That’s from the 2004 monster hit “Figured You Out,” a song that helped this band sell millions of records and delude millions of people into thinking they’d purchased something of worth.
And, now and forever, it calls bullshit on “If Everyone Cared.”
Go choke yourselves, assholes.
This article appears in Mar 22-28, 2007.