The Shilling

[The Rogue Wolf]

However, I'm really starting to dislike this issue of 'selling out'. How do we quantify when an artist, of whatever denomination, has 'sold out'?

These days, it's "if you make a single penny off what you do", or "if you cater to anyone's tastes besides mine". Case in point: There's a young woman who makes meditation/relaxation/ASMR videos on YouTube. She has a lovely voice and does a great job. However, on one of her videos, somebody called her a "sellout" because she makes money (as a YouTube partner) from her videos.

Making money off of something she loves to do and is good at? How DARE she!

 

[Andy Shandy]

Meh, I quite enjoy both Linkin Park and Nickelback. In fact, Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands (up there with NIN), and yes this includes all their stuff, old and new. Or at least their music, not a fan of the Medal Of Honor ads though. Although that's more due to it being Medal Of Honor.

[sub] Please don't kill me! [/sub]

What if they didn't think they were terrible though. I mean, I thought they were terrible, you obviously think they were terrible, and I know a lot of other people who thought they were terrible. But is it not possible that Linkin Park weren't motivated by money, and had they same creative passion for writing those tie-ins as they did for all their other songs? I just think the only people who can really say for sure whether they did or not is them.

Just to inform you, as far as I'm aware, the only song they specifically wrote for either Bayformers or MoH was New Divide. All the others (What I've Done & Iridescent for Bayformers and Castle Of Glass and The Catalyst) were songs that were on their albums anyway.

 

[Fappy]

Meh, I quite enjoy both Linkin Park and Nickelback. In fact, Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands (up there with NIN), and yes this includes all their stuff, old and new. Or at least their music, not a fan of the Medal Of Honor ads though. Although that's more due to it being Medal Of Honor.

[sub] Please don't kill me! [/sub]

I personally can't stand anything post Hybrid Theory except for maybe one or two songs from Meteora.

 

[Andy Shandy]

Meh, I quite enjoy both Linkin Park and Nickelback. In fact, Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands (up there with NIN), and yes this includes all their stuff, old and new. Or at least their music, not a fan of the Medal Of Honor ads though. Although that's more due to it being Medal Of Honor.

[sub] Please don't kill me! [/sub]

I personally can't stand anything post Hybrid Theory except for maybe one or two songs from Meteora.

That's fair enough. You definitely aren't the only one with that opinion, by any means =P

 

[MetalMagpie]

As always, I feel the need to post this:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7846322/taking-concert-doubleheader-creed-nickelback-world-most-hated-bands

One of the lines from the article says everything:

"It's hard to get inside the existential paradox of Kroeger's life on tour: Every day, he gives interviews to journalists and radio DJs who directly ask him why no one likes his band. Every night, he plays music to thousands of enraptured superfans, many of whom love him with a ferocity that's probably unhealthy. Every concert ends with a standing ovation; if he feels motivated, he spends the remainder of the night partying with forgettable strangers who will remember him for the rest of their lives. Eventually, Kroeger falls asleep. And then he wakes up in a beautiful hotel room, only to read new articles about how everyone in North America hates his band."

I like their music. But enter any musical conversation, and the same three hates will come up:

Nickelback
Linkin Park
Metallica post Black Album

It gets old.

Agreed. I personally love listening to their music while at the gym. It has a good rhythm to run to and the lyrics make me smile.

This comic feels appropriate:

Why don't we all take a leaf out of the Hipster Bible and find a band no one's ever heard of to hate.

 

[Zombie_Moogle]

I suppose there's a right & wrong way to go about getting super-rich as a musician or group. I'd say a prime example is Papa Roach. They've gone from nu metal, to hard rock, to metalcore, & their new album even has small moments of dubstep thrown in. No one could argue they don't see the trends in the music industry & take full advantage, but they don't garner anything close to the kind of hate that Linkin Park or Nickleback are pelted with, and for good reason in my opinion. To start, Papa Roach is a very talented group. Even with all their genre flip-flopping, they manage to put out pretty consistently good albums. It could also be that they never really got as big as either of the aformentioned bands. They're famous, successful, have a dedicated fanbase, but they never cut a remix album with JayZ; pulling stunts like that might be the reason in & of itself. Papa Roach was on the Avengers soundtrack, but I doubt anyone here will fault them for that.

 

[Madara XIII]

The Shilling

They Did Try Really Hard

Read Full Article

I cannot tell you how much I love this comic just simply how it hit the nail on the head with Linkin Park.

I mean I'm in no way a fan of Nickelback, but Linkin Park's descent was not a very graceful one.
At least with Nickelback we knew they weren't trying to be anything besides corporate sell outs.

 

[Madara XIII]

Meh, I quite enjoy both Linkin Park and Nickelback. In fact, Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands (up there with NIN), and yes this includes all their stuff, old and new. Or at least their music, not a fan of the Medal Of Honor ads though. Although that's more due to it being Medal Of Honor.

[sub] Please don't kill me! [/sub]

I personally can't stand anything post Hybrid Theory except for maybe one or two songs from Meteora.

Meteora was pretty decent. And Reanimation was their last good effort.
Minutes to Midnight...It had promise. One or two songs were good, but that's the problem with Linkin Park now.

Only 1 or 2 of their songs are bearable if not any in each new atrocious album.

 

[gardian06]

why does the last cell look so stick figure-ish. I like the regular realism approach used, but why not keep consistency throughout. It kind of looks like the last cell could have been a splice from a Kim Possible comic/show.

Captcha: blog this
great now the captha thinks it can give me orders just cause it can do phychic stuff. not jet Captcha I don't answer to you... maybe I should start a blog.

 

[AlexanderPeregrine]

What always pissed me off about Nickelback is how little they think of their audience. Besides basically using a glam metal album structure without the tongue-in-cheek irony, their songs assume their audience consists of unambitious, conformist idiots that have nothing else going on in their lives but getting drunk, fucking, and wondering why their lives are shit. It would be one thing if they actually believed in all this... but they don't!

Why don't we all take a leaf out of the Hipster Bible and find a band no one's ever heard of to hate.

Ask and you shall receive.


EDIT: Bonus video

 

[MetalMagpie]

To be perfectly honest, Linken Park deserves a lot of their bile, but not for the reasons people say. "Blah Blah Blah Selloutsellout" who cares? Here's something I find much more applicable:

In almost every single song they've written, LP has some kind of drum beat going. But last I looked, they don't have a drummer. -_- It's that they are just a lazy fucking band, letting computers do half the work while reaping 100% of the benefits. People shouldn't pay others for music that they can just as easily make themselves at home with a decent computer and some shitty software.

Linkin Park's drummer is a guy called Rob Bourdon. He's been with the band since they formed.

Besides - even if they didn't have a drummer:

a) A lot of bands use session musicians when they don't have a regular band member to play the instrument (or just to get a different sound).

b) A lot of techno music is made almost entirely using a computer. It doesn't mean it's easy to do.

 

[BehattedWanderer]

As always, I feel the need to post this:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7846322/taking-concert-doubleheader-creed-nickelback-world-most-hated-bands

One of the lines from the article says everything:

"It's hard to get inside the existential paradox of Kroeger's life on tour: Every day, he gives interviews to journalists and radio DJs who directly ask him why no one likes his band. Every night, he plays music to thousands of enraptured superfans, many of whom love him with a ferocity that's probably unhealthy. Every concert ends with a standing ovation; if he feels motivated, he spends the remainder of the night partying with forgettable strangers who will remember him for the rest of their lives. Eventually, Kroeger falls asleep. And then he wakes up in a beautiful hotel room, only to read new articles about how everyone in North America hates his band."

I like their music. But enter any musical conversation, and the same three hates will come up:

Nickelback
Linkin Park
Metallica post Black Album

It gets old.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, you could replace every instance of Chad Kroeger in that piece with [insert terrible pop act here] and get the same result.

Nicelback are fairly terrible, but they probably do get far more flack than they deserve.

Like from video game based webcomics, for example?

I've gone 250 strips with no shots at Nickelback, I think I deserve one.

I say we call the Spiderman rule on this, just so that we don't keep getting them: Everybody gets one. It's alright as a toss away punchline, and in this case, are only half the punchline, so that's cool. But recurring punching bag wouldn't work well. Also, hooray, new phrase! Anyone ever tell you you're a particularly good wordsmith when it comes to bile-filled phrases? Because if not, that's what I'm doing now. And if so, then I'm reinforcing it.

 

[tehweave]

I don't hate Nickelback.

I'm not a fan, but I could pick out 3 or so songs out of their entire repertoire that I actually enjoy.

Heck, I have a few on my MP3 player.

They aren't awful, but I'm not going to sing their praises.

They're okay.

 

[MetalMagpie]

What always pissed me off about Nickelback is how little they think of their audience. Besides basically using a glam metal album structure without the tongue-in-cheek irony, their songs assume their audience consists of unambitious, conformist idiots that have nothing else going on in their lives but getting drunk, fucking, and wondering why their lives are shit. It would be one thing if they actually believed in all this... but they don't!

It may just be because I'm British, but I find Nickelback's music to be almost completely tongue-in-cheek. So many of the songs are so wonderfully silly, full of over-blown innuendo and stories about drunken stupidity. "Something in Your Mouth" makes me smile every time I listen to it. It's completely stupid, but completely full of life.

I'm not such a fan of their more serious offerings like "Just to Get High" (although "Lullaby" was surprisingly decent) but when they're being silly they're great.

 

[MetalMagpie]

The wise prophet Jeph Jacques once said "The greatest hipster (indy) band ever created creates no songs, releases no material. That way, they can never be mainstream, and thus be a perfect talking out your ass point forever."

A wise man indeed.

After all, it wouldn't do become popular or (heaven forbid) to make money out of that-one-thing-you-want-to-do-with-your-life.

 

[MorganL4]

My only real problem with Nickelback came about when this happened:


That said I do Like the song that Kroeger featured on that Santana did a few years back.

 

[Thedutchjelle]

Meh, I quite enjoy both Linkin Park and Nickelback. In fact, Linkin Park are one of my favourite bands (up there with NIN), and yes this includes all their stuff, old and new. Or at least their music, not a fan of the Medal Of Honor ads though. Although that's more due to it being Medal Of Honor.

[sub] Please don't kill me! [/sub]

I personally can't stand anything post Hybrid Theory except for maybe one or two songs from Meteora.

I dont know if it's my browser or your avatar, but your Weeping Angel moves when I scroll away from it and back again. You creepy bastard D:

On topic: I don't know either band. I've heard the names but I doubt I know the songs. Still enjoyed the comic though