FF:NZ another reason to hate Nickleback

put your headphones on and check this out

 

hahaha. glad to see i'm not the only one here who think these guys are crap!

 

Yeak, it's funny.

Though one could probably do the same for any number of classic tracks by the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters...

Not that I'm comparing that awful band with those rock'n'roll & blues legends.

 

I hate those prats, I'll need a damn good reason to click that link.

 

You'll enjoy the link, trust me.

 

My ears are bleeding!!!

 

Classic! Those untalented monkeys! It isn't a new song if you only change the lyrics...

 

Of course it is you twit. Is a t-shirt not a t-shirt if it has a different print on the front? Yes. Even a song with the same lyrics is a different song if it's done as a cover by a different person/band.

 

What if it has the same lyrics?

Is Clapton's unplugged version of Layla a different song to his original Derek & the Dominos version?

I'd say YES!

 

I have about six different versions of 'Dude (Looks like a lady)' by Aerosmith in my music collection. Different album releases, an acoustic version, colaberations with different muscially personalities, etc etc. They're all the same song.

What I was getting at was just re-using the same 'sound' and adding new lyrics is a bit of a creative cop-out. Yes, they are indeed different songs, but creatively just ticking the boxes you know will work to get a number one single is lame. Really lame.

It's not using any creative talent you my actually possess but just caving into the need to be a commercial success. Music used to be so much more than that.

 

I could play you some Chuck Berry / Robert Johnson / Muddy Waters / Bo Diddley / John Fogerty that carry the same tune as other tracks in the artist's repertoir.

 

Riiigghht...

I may just bow to your infinite wisdom in this arena JP.

 

and kiss his feet

I think everyone in this world is out to make money to have a better life / lifestyle. If people know something works (ie: a song beat), and they can only change a few things and it still makes them more money, then why the hell not?! Any one of us would do less than that to make more money, surely

 

OK. Here's my take. I'm all for artists radically reinterpreting their songs. Bob Dylan has made a career out of it, and that's why people will go and see hm hundreds and hundreds of times, because no performance is the same. Lyrics are changed and adapted, tempos and instrumentation change. He'll do some entire shows at the piano, and then be back on the guitar the next night etc. It's a mark of someone continually honing their craft.

re: JP's examples of guys like Bo Diddley etc. (and you could put The White Stripes in the same framework.) There's actually a real art to taking the most bare-bones, formulaic standard like 12 bar blues, and then tweaking it slightly to generate hundreds of different songs. It's the mark of those songwriters that they can work within a narrowly defined framework and still write great, memorable songs. (And Danish duo The Ravonettes come to mind here - on their first album - "Whip It On" - they decided to make every song under three minutes, and every song in the key of B-flat minor. It was TOTALLY formulaic, but it works because they actually wrote great songs.)

Back to Nickleback. There's no element of craft here. It's a bunch of guys in a meeing room saying
'"How You Remind Me" was a HUGE hit. Can't you write another song which sounds just like that?'
and the band saying "sure ... ummm ... OK, yeah ..."
It's a cynical, blatantly commercial move which is all about money and marketing and nothing about art.

OK - rant over.

 

Wahoo! Thanks STH! You just said what I had been trying to, just much more eloquently!