Nickelback
Roadrunner Records: 2005
Tracklist:
1. Follow you home
2. Fight for all the wrong reasons
3. Photograph
4. Animals
5. Savin' me
6. Far Away
7. Next Contestant
8. Side of a bullet
9. If everyone cared
10. Someone that you're with
11. Rockstar
After one decent album, and then a string of letdowns one after another, I have come to accept that any records released by Nickelback will be poor, repetitive, and annoying. This will be the last time I ever trick myself into buying a Nickelback album, and it’s almost somber of me to say that because Nickelback was one of four bands I pretty much grew up with. The Beatles, 3 Doors Down, Creed, and Nickelback. Anytime I would ever be in the back of either my mom’s, or dad’s car, one of those four bands would be in the stereo. Overtime however, I realized that I didn’t really like Nickelback. Sure some songs were entertaining, but as a whole album, well, I’ll be nice, and say that it wasn’t very rewarding to listen to a whole Nickelback album. So here I am, reviewing another one of their records, but how did I do this to myself? Well, at first I had no intention of purchasing “All The Right Reasons” because of the boring, acoustic single, Photograph. It’s not necessarily bad, but the last couple albums before had at least entertaining singles. Later on, I heard the second single, Animals on Music Choice Rock. That further didn’t help the case of me buying the new record because it is another standard Nickelback single, but not even catchy.
Then I found out that one song on “All The Right Reasons” was a tribute to Dimebag Darrel, and even featured a solo from him being used with permission by Dimebag’s wife. That piqued my interest, but only to a slight extent. So I bought Side of a Bullet off of iTunes, and it proved a rewarding listen indeed. The opening riff was somewhat a combination of a distorted Nickelback/Pantera guitar riff. The solo was fairly good too, and fit well. All of it was entertaining, but what really caught my attention were the powerful lyrics. “Uncle Sam taught him to shoot maybe a little too well. Finger on the trigger. Loaded bullet. He hit the stage so full of rage, and let the whole world know it. Six feet away, they heard him say, “Oh God, don’t let him pull it! Please God don’t let him pull it!” How could you put us through it? His brother watched you do it! How could you take his life away? How could you be so full of hate? And when I heard you let him die, and made the world all wonder why I sat at home, and on my own I cried alone, and scratched your name on the side of a bullet.”
With that I decided to finally buy, “All The Right Reasons”. Well, I should have known better. In a previous review, I stated that Nickelback shouldn’t ever attempt to write acoustic songs because it never works. Then why I wonder are there in five songs with the use of an acoustic guitar in them? To be blunt, it doesn’t work at all. They’re boring, and repetitive, which is basically the same thing as the rest of the album, but worse. Rockstar is one of the acoustic songs, and is the closer to the album as well. Plus, it’s about the worst song of the record. It’s not the music, but the lyrics that make it so bad. “I’m gonna sing those songs that offend the censors. Gonna pop my pills from a pez dispenser. When they ask me why I drink all day I’ll say because I can. I’ll get washed up singers writing all my songs. Lip sync ‘em every night so I don’t get ‘em wrong. Then listen to the fans tell me how damn good I am. I’m gonna trade this life for fortune and fame. I’d even cut my hair, and change my name. Cause we all just wanna be big rock stars.” Well, at least they tried to add variety, but they do it rather pitifully, and I almost felt like laughing out loud when I heard, Someone That You’re With. I don’t know what they were thinking with that opening guitar part, but I guess they wanted to get their folksy side out. Rather pathetic really. It’s a standard, potential, Nickelback single, but with a folksy guitar-opening riff, that comes back a few more times.
It’s really sad that “All The Right Reasons” only has one above average song on it, and the rest are poor. I’ll grant the fact that the songs don’t sound the same as they do on other Nickelback albums, but they are all still boring, and uninspired, save Side of a Bullet. “All The Right Reasons” does one good thing at least, which is teaching me to never buy a Nickelback album again.
2/5
Poor