This article originally appeared at the now defunct blog over at TheHundred. You can read all of Alibi Pierce’s electronic music news coverage right here, or at his TheHundred author page (while it’s still up).
Nickelback is like that annoying friend who’s always late to the party. They were about 10 years late to the whole grunge thing with their unfathomably popular 2001 hit, How You Remind Me, and lead singer Chad Kroeger was another decade late in jumping on the Avril Lavigne train. Now, the band is proving its chronically late bonafides with a foray into cocaine disco in the new single, She Keeps Me Up. An obvious attempt to capitalize on the once-supposedly-dead-but-now-everybody-loves-it genre that’s influencing everything from pop to hip hop and (as ever) electronic music, the track is pure cheese. Really cheesy. You know, in a bad way.
The barely-veiled lyrics are an obvious ode to a cocaine vixen. If the title doesn’t tip Nickelback’s hand, the chorus definitely does: “Funky little monkey, she’s a twisted trickster/Everybody wants to be the sister’s mister/Coca-Cola roller-coaster/Love her even though I’m not supposed to.”
Get it? “Coca-Cola,” “Up all night,” “Twisted!!!” Those guys are so clever.
The video is even worse, with the band performing at a “secret party” (you can tell it’s secret because there’s a STAR instead of numbers on the door!) in the worst Halloween disco apparel you can imagine. Everything–and I mean everything–blinged out with mirrored ball facets.
Damn, making fun of Nickelback never gets old.
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