10 Hated Rock Bands With One Amazing Album
4. The State - Nickelback
As much as post grunge may have infiltrated every part of rock radio around the turn of the century, Nickelback never fit all that well into that category. With the "eye opening" lyrics of Chad Kroeger and some of the most basic riffs known to mankind, this is the base level quality of rock music that you can make while still being considered in the field of rock and roll. Long before Chad calculated the exact middle of the road for rock radio, The State was actually surprisingly decent.
If there's one complaint to be had with this album though, it's that it's dated as all hell. When you listen to some of the songs off of this record, you can tell that this came from the late '90s, down to the sludgy guitar tone on some of these songs sounding like it was leftover from the early days of grunge. On some of these songs though, Chad actually has some impressive chops behind the mic, especially with songs like Breathe where he's almost on full metal mode.
For the massive curve that people grade Nickelback on, this is an incredibly solid first effort from a band like this. You can tell that if they were given just the right amount of polish, they might be capable of doing much bigger and better things. Though the polish did eventually come, the amazing songwriting of this album unfortunately had to be left in the past.