Nickelback
photo: jkmusicgroup · cc by 3.0 ↗Nickelback formed in 1995 in the small town of Hanna, Alberta, around brothers Chad and Mike Kroeger, and spent years grinding through the Canadian club circuit before their 2001 album 'Silver Side Up' and its lead single 'How You Remind Me' made them one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. Their sound welds the gravelly, melismatic vocals and melodic heaviness of post-grunge to fist-pumping, hard-rock party anthems, a formula that made them enormously popular and, in equal measure, a favorite critical punching bag through the 2000s. For a decade they were an inescapable presence on rock radio, moving tens of millions of records on the strength of ballads like 'Photograph' and swaggering bar-rock like 'Rockstar.'
Critics routinely file Nickelback under post-grunge, the radio-rock movement that followed and smoothed out the Seattle sound Pearl Jam helped define, and Chad Kroeger's gruff, deep-throated baritone in particular has often been likened to Eddie Vedder's phrasing.
listen forPlay Vedder's slow, vibrato-heavy climb on 'Black,' then drop into Kroeger on 'Someday' — both ride a mid-tempo, chord-driven build up to a raw, throat-forward chorus sung from the back of the throat.
Nickelback's fist-pumping bar-rock anthems lean on the meat-and-potatoes riff worship of AC/DC — big, unhurried power chords and blunt hooks built for arena singalongs and hard living.
listen forThrow on the stomping riff and shout-along chorus of 'Back in Black,' then Nickelback's 'Burn It to the Ground' — both swagger on a blunt, mid-tempo hard-rock riff and a party-anthem hook.
The heavier, downtuned side of Nickelback — chugging low-string riffs under grim, harmonized vocals — echoes Alice in Chains, whose murky, drop-tuned take on grunge became a widely copied template for 2000s hard rock.
listen forCue the grinding, drop-tuned riff of 'Would?' and then Nickelback's 'Never Again' — both lock a heavy, palm-muted low-end groove under a brooding, hovering vocal.