14 DAY TRIAL // Canadian rock band Nickelback have a new single and music video out, and even though it premiered online last week, it’s just now that it’s getting critics and fans up in arms. It’s called “She Keeps Me Up” and is a disco rock track that has the cheesiest visual companion.
For loyal fans, the video is proof that they’re selling out, that they’re trying to embrace the new trend for Robin Thicke-style of music in a bid to boost sales. Critics are equally unimpressed with both the video and the music.
What is this cheesiness?
As you can see below, the video for “She Keeps Me Up” opens with 2 young women out on the town, looking to have some fun. They arrive at a venue with a glittery star on the door, and a funky dude with retro-style shades and hat invites them in by calling them “children.”
Once inside, the girls, whose outfits and styling have mysteriously changed, find a scene from a bad ‘70s movie: there’s a retro party happening, complete with a skating rink, mirror balls, and Nickelback dressed in sharp suits, with mirror-covered guitars and cool shades.
We also see a bartender who’s entertaining the crowd with his neat tricks, and a black backup singer who is introduced to the viewers when Chad Kroeger sings for the first time the line “Funky little monkey, she’s a twisted trickster.” This is most definitely a coincidence, but commenters on YouTube didn’t miss it.
So, within minutes of the debut of the music video, the same fans were outraged: was this what their favorite Canadian rock band had come to? Wasn’t Nickelback selling out by making a disco video, to accompany a song that was unlike what they would normally sing?
As you can imagine, most of them answered in the positive and they proceeded to post their arguments in favor of said answer.
Gawker has a collection of their outraged comments on the topic of the new Nickelback release; if we were to sum them up, we’d say that the band, in their attempt to keep up with the new trends in showbiz, have managed to alienate those who stood by them for years, supporting them in everything they did.
The critics are equally unimpressed, by the way.
Twitter mocks Nickelback for “She Keeps Me Up”
Most fans took offense with the music video, saying that the song was decent enough: not the best from Nickelback, but not the worst either.
Elsewhere online, reactions ranged from mocking to stunned, with people saying that the song was just as bad for trying to make the change to disco. You can see some tweets on the topic below, just to give you an idea of the things people found wrong with the song.
Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald describes it as “one of the worst songs and video clips ever produced by a major label,” “breathtakingly cheesy and sleazy,” and “an abomination so politically incorrect it views like a horrific window into one of [lead singer Chad] Kroeger’s dreams,” Global News reports.
A review from Vanyaland.com of “2015’s Steamiest Pile of Dog[expletive],” meaning the new Nickelback song, reads as follows: “everyone’s favorite Canadian punching bag not named Justin Bieber or Carey Price has released a new video,” describing the lyrics of the song as “insane” and “middle school poetry.”
All in all, Nickelback might have grown thick skin from the years of being the band everyone loved to hate, but we have a feeling not even that prepared them for what they got with “She Keeps Me Up.” Speaking of which, here it is:
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, Then have we found the perfect location for a Nickelback concert.
— Nino Firetto (@NinoFiretto) March 9, 2015
Unsure if it's the jet lag keeping me awake at night or if it's Chad Kroeger's finger wiggling in the new Nickelback video.
— Sam Douglas (@Sam_Mallory) March 9, 2015
. @TheEDMNetwork I would say this is nickelback trying to make a maroon 5 song. I almost stuck a pencil in my ear
— jake the human (@killthenoise) March 9, 2015
That new Nickelback song is the worst. 👎
— Alex Kouvatsos (@AKTGOG) March 9, 2015
if you play a Nickelback song backwards..you'll hear messages from the devil. Even worse, if you play it forwards you'll hear Nickelback.
— Zedd [ZZ] (@Zeddzy) March 9, 2015