ten things i like about nickelback's rockstar

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

ten things that i like about it

1) Because its lack of jaded posing. i like that someone suggests that the real estate, the drinking, the pussy, the drugs, and the fame, esp. the fame are fun--not pointless, not useless, not vapid, but pleasurable.
2) Because it reminds me of Kenny Chesney or Tim Mcgraw, the presence of rich from big and rich in the video, plus Ted Nugent and Paul Stanley from kiss presently, add more evidence to the now ubiqitous notion that the middle section of a Venn diagram featuring rock cheese and pop country is becoming wider.
3) Because its like Ashlee or Avril, except w/o the per formative gender politics, because i actually have to like it for its own sake
4) Because its oddly democratic, in how he wants everyone to be a big rock star, and that he thinks that everyone actually might be able to pull it off, and i mean optimism isn't class war, but sometimes imagining playboy bunnies and enough jack to lift a ship is enough to keep going.
5) Because its charmingly retrograde
6) Because sometimes i done want to think about the politics: the whole idea of women as property is just sad, sometimes i want to watch a video with clever and self referential jokes, and a supremely hooky chorus, and not deconstruct it at all.
7) because the sopken half senteces by that dude from zz top, have a gravelled, long time on the road, energy that seems to have gone away. (esp when he says been there, done it) (some hip hop king should sample how he says quesadilla though)
8) because some of the lines, spit out really fantastic examples of rhyme (fashion/mansion, tassles/assholes) or connaissance (big black jet w. a bathroom innit, playboy bunny with bleach blonde hair) the song is really well written.
9) because the chorus is really fucking fun to sing at top volume, this years genuine bar anthem.
10) because the video consists of a series of cameo's that are truly weird (including:the elderly, small children, Hugh Hefner's gfs at the playboy mansion, two cops, paul Stanley, Paul wall, various blondes, some one on the trading floor of wal street, interpretive hippie dancers, rich from big and rich in the the studio, a half naked ufc fighter, a valet, someone who kind of looks like Peter O Toole, kid rock, Nelly Furtado on her tour bus, a nascar driver, Ted Nugent, two punks in Washington square park, one wearing a misfits t, TI (i think) in a case study house, someone smelting heavy metals, security guards, the naked cowboys, an nba player, Wayne Gretzky and others.

Comments

[koganbot]

Point number 3 caught my attention, of course, but what caught my attention even more is Travis Tritt's scorching cover of Nickelback's "Should've Listened." Up to now I've made a reasonable effort not to hear much Nickelback, though I can't say I hated that pretty good song of theirs from back whenever. But anyway, maybe I need to consider reversing policy.

nickelback

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

it was sort of meant to catch yr attention, because i think maybe a formalism of pop might be emergent (which is kind of why you are talking about backstreet. no?)

i think maybe because they are from hannae alberta, and have what my friend rachel calls a date rape aesthetic, they are sort of like hinder, the last bastion of critical cant touch that, though i find nickelback much more interesting then hinder.

now that i have you here, any thots about kenny winning the fiddy/game fight?

Re: nickelback

[koganbot]

Had no idea that there was a Kenny involved in the Fiddy/Game fight (which I haven't paid attention to in at least a year).

Re: nickelback

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

involved i9n the sense that they were both fighting about who would have the number one album in the country, and then kenny came up the middle

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

I was going to write a longer thing about this song and I had a completely different take on it--the whole tone of the song seemed to imply that he wasn't glorifying the material things, but bemoaning their emptiness. I guess I haven't seen the video though! But yeah, rock formalism--I was going to compare it to the distinctly un-rock chorus and horns on "You Can't Always Get What You Want" as an example of rock's codification as a sound.

[dickmalone.livejournal.com]

(I still mostly agree with you, though, and am glad you wrote this.)