If you like that sketch than you'll like the movie. Some parts are meh, but most of the sketches are hilarious. And if you like the Onion movie, check out American Raspberry, it's very similar but from the 70s.
thank you so much Kindc sir. this shit is comedy gold. on another note, i read your comment and thought, i don't remember this in the movie Onion. lol took me s min to figure out it.
A lot of artists like to pretend they don't commodify their art so when they do something that's explicitly commodified they think that's something special. To consumers it's just another commodity. Just like the rest of their art.
Or like these elaborate phone scams- two guys call us who are impersonating actual police and scare the bajeebies out of people to make them think there is a warrant out for arrest.
After an hour or two on the phone you find out they want GIFT CARDS. Ummm, how are Fortnite gift cards going to keep me out of jail.
The charisma and quick thinking in their end make me think they would make great car salesmen, and they could maybe even get insurance!
Reminds me of my friends in high school that came up with such astonishingly elaborate schemes to cheat on exams, they could have easily just studied for the exams in less time than it took to cheat.
"We wanted to make a song that would top the charts, so we researched top hits for two weeks. We were so ready for it that we did the whole thing in a single take."
(Not an actual quote, but it is the actual story of how Nickelback wrote How You Remind Me.)
Which paradoxically, even though this wasn't known until later on, I think it greatly influenced how everyone has a disdain for nickelback. It isn't that their songs are bad; it's that they are generic and lacking any real heart/depth.
They're only hypocrites if you imagine them as average popular music enjoyers, similar sentiments were always present in the rock, metal and punk spheres for any band that incorporated too much pop in their music, it's just that the Nickelback thing became a meme.
But thats what im saying. Nickelback became a meme that went somewhat mainstream. Ive heard motherfuckers make fun of nickelback whos music experience boils down to whatever is on the radio and maybe some techno
It’s because those are the same motherfuckers that were 13 in 2006 when every third song on your local radio station was either Photograph, Rockstar, or How You Remind Me. The songs were EVERYWHERE and depending on where you’re from they continued to be played for a few years at least. When you hear them multiple times a day every day without even trying due to radio, stores, and commercials it becomes easy to notice how generic sounding they are. The riffs, guitar tone, vocal melodies are all extremely played out and boring. Plus the lyricism is just awful. People got overexposed to The Back and that’s what led to a majority of people clowning on them.
Ive heard motherfuckers make fun of nickelback whos music experience boils down to whatever is on the radio and maybe some techno
Who else do you think was listening to nickelback? They were a radio band listened to by people who listened to the radio lol
A lot of people made fun of nickelback because even if you went out of your way to not hear their music, you’d still hear it. And it fucking sucks too, it’s generic, soulless buttock designed to sell bud light and t-shirts, no matter what the stupid post-fact feeling is about them these days.
I'm sure there's a word for it, but what's popular is watered down, and people who are very into a field have different tastes than most people who are content with that watered down version. Hence the meta commentary on websites like these are going to be more thoughtful than just what people who happen to be listening to the radio might turn to. If you took the world's most popular wine, and a bunch of heavy wine enthusiasts, they probably wouldn't consider it a good wine. If you took a bunch of musicians and ask for their favourite music, they wouldn't say Taylor Swift. If you took a bunch of operating system enthusiasts and asked for their thoughts, they often wouldn't like Windows or iOS. There's a certain curve, what's popular isn't good, and people who are into a field have different tastes than what most people like.
Hence, there's no hypocrisy in a band being both one of the most popular, and overwhelmingly being panned by music enthusiasts.
They based their music on the butt rock that we’d left behind 10 years earlier, which was popular but dated. Music discovery also still largely happened over the radio in ways that many listeners today don’t understand, so a song would come on and you‘d be stuck with it or have to ruin your flow and switch to another station that was mid-song or whatever. Just take a look at this list though and imagine your radio station playing all of these singles, a mix of almost entirely new artists and refreshing styles, and then switching in a Nickleback:
"Their songs aren't bad". Then you define why songs in general suck --and that's exactly what they always do. Can't say I'm on-board with your premise here... Most pop songs are inherently uninteresting because they are creatively placid, but they do deliver to people what people will enjoy. Populism doesn't equal quality; always funny when people argue that because a tune charts high that means it has creative value. Nah. It CAN have it, but that doesn't man it does.
I think I can compare it to AI. (In a nutshell) AI takes in all media and compiles it into its brain, then when someone asks it to create something; while it CAN create something new - it can only use elements and features it has specifically learned. This leads to a product that is bland and lacking in the depth that human emotion can create.
The way Kroeger explains how he writes hits is EXACTLY that; he regurgitates other works into his own soup and serves it to us - not exactly palatable but it's got all the ingredients we know and like so we put up.with it for 2 minutes and 56 seconds.
As someone who isn't a fan of Nickelback, but am married to one, I find that their first 3-4 albums actually have some pretty good songs (Too Bad, Never Again, Hangnail, etc.) but they had those 3-4 pop hits that dominated the radio and they focused all their efforts in that direction, watering down what was already not a very original sound. I find the hate really out of proportion,
Everyone has a disdain for Nickelback because a comedian (Brian Pusayne, maybe? Don’t remember who. Either way I fucked the last name spelling) made a single joke about it in a standup routine and it became a proto-meme to hate Nickelback after that.
Like Hannibal Burres making one joke about Bill Cosby which snowballed into Cosby being jailed (and then later released).
I’m 100% certain that some people hated the band prior to the comedian’s joke, but that turned it into a proto-meme. I was a teen when this was happening, not 6.
Trust me, growing up in Canada Nickelback had LOTS of exposure and we hated them to meme-like status in the schoolyard when they came on the radio 2000-2001. I had no idea who Posehn was until I was well versed in hating Nickelback.
Hating Nickelback was a meme long before that joke. They came from a popular metal label and the metal community hated them (and Roadrunner records) for putting all their resources on a cookie cutter pop rock band. It was seen as a death knell for Roadrunner at least as their metal credibility goes.
They were hated from their inception and the meme spread from the metal community who are seen as music snobs but often copied.
That special just had a hack joke playing off things that people would semi-regularly say. People had already heard nickelback hate and that’s why the joke would resonate with an audience.
Also, it’s not a “proto-meme” it’s just a meme. The word meme comes from Dawkin’s “The Selfish Gene” and it refers to an element of culture. A meme can be an idea, behavior, style etc.
Memes predate the modern usage of “internet picture with text”. The english language is a meme.
Yes, it was ubiquitous enough for the comic to reference it and get a laugh. Saying a niche comic is the actual meme origin is crazy.
The meme came from music snobs and people aping them.
Hate for slipknot is a similar meme that came from the same place. It just didn’t spread as wide because they are at least numetal rather than cookie cutter pop rock.
Go on r/metalmemes and you’ll find the slipknot hate meme is alive and well. They are the same record label as nickelback and both were derided by the community.
John Anderson (country artists back in the 80s and 90s) wrote an album for his ex-wife because the divorce agreement was that she would get the profits from his next album.
So, he wrote the worst songs he could come up with.
One of the songs he’s most famous for, and became one of his biggest hits, came from that album.
I prefer Hook by Blues Traveler. It's literally a song about using nonsense to make a song, and how it hooks you even though what the singer is saying means nothing.
This is practically a microgenre of its own. Beck did this with the lyrics to "Loser" because he was playing these clubs where people were too busy drinking and flirting to pay attention so he started making up lyrics that sounded deep but were nonsense when you try to think about it.
They were always a band that I never got really into but respected, but I noticed something about them I didn't back in the 90s because I had a crappy boombox and that was it: If you listen to some of their "big" songs on an actual good sound system, their studio production is like, wow. Great engineering and mixing.
Reminds me of Love Song by Sara Bareilles that was released in 2007. She was angry with her record label for pushing her to write specific kinds of songs. “I’m not gonna write you a love song, cause you need one, cause you asked for it…” And then they released it and it went to #4 on the Billboard chart.
tbf (and while I don't disagree the song is a banger) that's basically just classic call and response, with half-scatting random words, so it's kinda sense-agnostic
It totally was back in the day. To be fair Adriano celentano was one of the most influential Italian songwriters ever. This song is a total pisstake, but was hugely popular. A number of his songs are deep, meaningful and are beautifully written
Weezer didn’t wanna put buddy holly on the blue album, they thoght it was whatever. The albums producer made them.
I think for some artists, the rando hit song comes from a different mechanism in the way they normally make music… and it always maybe feels like an unlovable bastard of a song. And they hear it a billion times and grow even further from it. Unbeknownst that it has a major effect on others.
I like baking and I follow the recipes exactly. It usually works and you get some good results. But I know too many people who think you can just skip a step or mix two steps together and you can't even eat that hard baked slop. In practice a lots of people won't follow those rules. You first have to internalize them, then you can break them with your own flavor, not the other way around. Produce some generic music first, then do the headliners.
I'd say most of them know. My friend's most streamed song on spotify is a random basic pop song that's very different from his other music. He knew what he was doing.
But it seems true for them? Their next albums were a lot of more experimental, they very consciously chose to not pursue more pop hit songs.
And the pop hits they made were from their college days, their history is very much just experimental stuff and vibing. They would do stuff that is closer to performative art than actual songs.
I could see two artsty college students trying to make something super pop as a joke. Like, completely normal and tracks with their history and what they did after that
Yep they put their money with their mouth was and deliberately made music they wanted to make knowing it would never bring them anymore commercial success to the degree Oracular did. They even said they tried to churn out more pop hits because the label wanted them too but they just couldn't bring themselves to do it. They kept rewriting the song over and over until it was some ten minute long experimental song
Well the went on to make 4 more albums that sound nothing like this one (most of which are much better than this one) so I guess they meant what they said.
The video provides the context though? This is obviously a send-up of synth pop of the time and they’re clearly fucking around. It’s a great song even in this iteration but the recording by contrast makes it that much more catchy and effective. And that applies to the entire album.
A lot of artists will do this when they're starting out as a confidence thing. They don't feel comfortable putting themselves out there as trying to make serious music, so they do it as a "parody".
Yeah that's definitely not what was going on with MGMT. They were already making music before that was very strange, and they went back to very offbeat stuff after this album. It's a clear departure from their typical, and and pretty obviously them poking fun at the popular indie pop music of the time.
That's because the majority of pop bands and artists either make pop ironically or as a strategic move, because they want to be successful (Or both, or first the former then the latter). Idk what's wanker about it if it's the truth. Very few artists choose pop because that's what they want to make. Pop is music for the masses, but not very interesting to many musicians. I studied with a lot of the people my age here in Finland who are now starting their careers in music (I went a different direction but still know many in the music industry). The people I know who started bands and became artists and started to make pop, they never preferred it before, and would have never started to make and play any kind of pop, if it wasn't for the fact that that's the only way to have any chance of being successful.
And I'd say it's no different with big American pop stars. There's many of them that have old songs or covers that were of a wildly different genre, and with most of those I'd wager that's actually what they wanted to do, but it just doesn't sell.
I remember seeing them at a university here in Michigan (maybe around 2014-2015?) and they played Kids and Electric Feel right at the beginning and then said "now that's out of the way" and then proceeded to play the entirety of Congratulations twice lmao
If you were going to make an 'ironic' pop song you'd have bland lyrics like "oh my life is nearly perfect. Oh but the girl I love never notices me. Oh if I only write a perfect song then she'll be mine."
These lyrics are like they're from another dimension. On the face of it they make no coherent sense yet draw this incredibly vivid image in your mind'.
It's absolute genius. No way was it made as a joke.
Just googled the lyrics and they just seem like vaguely nonsensical phrases strung together. Any interpretation is going on in your head, you're reading much more into them than is actually there.
To me it’s about culture as a whole telling children to grow up which forces parents to yell at their kids for being kids. Families gather to spend time so can see the kids but the kids are consistently told to behalf, be quiet, and stop acting silly. The best years of our lives were spent being told to control ourselves and then when those days were gone, your family who told you to grow up would look back and think of your bratty years as the good old days. Parents complain about their kids being loud but those are the moments we hold preciously when it’s too late. That’s how I read the chorus especially.
Honestly I thought it was random lyrics when it came out, but I think the lyrics are much deeper than you give them credit.
I'm being serious! It's about childhood and how fleeting it is. Teaching your child not to take more than they need from the world's resources. Before you know it all you've got are memories.
Like any 'poetry' I guess everyone takes their own meaning from it - but no way that collection of words is lazy/accidental.
No shame there, arguably has my most favorite tracks. Tslamp!?! When you die!?!?!?!!?! But I finally listened to “Congratulations” from front to back instead of just randomly and I can’t get enough.
From personal experience, you try to make fun of pop and then realize that pop is successful for a reason and the ironic piece of trash you just made is the catchiest fucking thing you'll ever write.
Kids by MGMT, from their album Time to Pretend. (I’m a couple of generations older than most people on this thread so I had to look it up, even though I’ve heard it countless times.)
Always really bothered me as well because it's not a generic pop song at all. It's 5 minutes long and got this elaborate baroque classical harpsichordy solo thing going on in the middle for God's sake, hardly a full hearted to copy what's on the billboard hot 100 lol
There was an episode of 60 Songs That Explain the 90s colon The 2000s recently on MGMT that went into their history. In their case it's kinda plausible that they were genuine about that. But it's also kinda splitting hairs because they were at least wanker adjacent.
Fair nuff. But in this case, it's true. Look at the chip, they're obv hamming it up. These 2 just happen to be naturally gifted at creating catchy pop hooks. They spent the next 2 decades making more obtuse psych records. All good music. And their first LP is still the most timeless. But they're definitely having a laugh in this era.
"yeah we made this song that was mocking mainstream music and then it became mainstream and we sarcastically became rich and famous and squeezed every last penny out of it for the next 20 years"
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u/Jibbers-O-Growle Jan 23 '25
I adore these guys and listen to them an unhealthy amount but that is 100% a thing most wanker artists say lol