3rd edition in the category I call Underappreciated and this time the two bands I highlight have qualifiers once again.

These two bands are plenty appreciated as proven through their play counts but there are large communities of listeners who feel like they are terrible, and I don’t think they deserve this hate. Ironically I could probably write an article about how they don’t deserve the play count either but I think the hate storyline is more intriguing. Don’t let that noise prevent you from listening to some good music! Without further ado…

Nickelback

Man back in the day when I was a teenager this band was so popular… to hate. They were the butt of so many jokes both in school and in the mainstream. On one hand you can kind of understand because a lot of their hits were certainly cheesy, but music is filled with those songs; the unproportional hate this band got for that is something I still will never understand. Whats wrong with being a pop-rock band? it almost seemed like jealousy that they were torn down so much. Are they my favorite band? far from it but even their aforementioned hits (like “How you Remind Me”, “Someday”, “Photograph”, “Savin’ Me”) aren’t that cringeable. And if you go past that in their discography you’ll learn that they have a lot of songs that don’t actually sound like those songs.

Some people venture to even say they are Metal (I don’t). songs like “Burn it to the Ground” has that heavier sound but I still think its just hard rock (Almost too catchy for metal). Their style gives me Hinder vibes (or vice versa, Hinder was after); songs “She Keeps me Up” and “Something in your mouth” are heavy-adjacent tracks you’d hear in a frat, catchy enough beat to dance to them and make questionable decisions. I feel like this band was victim to a portion of the general rock community having misaligned expectations and trying to take them for more than they are; just because they are massively popular, doesn’t mean their music has to transcend their genre. Once you sit back and listen to a song like “When We Stand Together” or “Too Bad” as just another rock song rather than a Nickelback song, it stands tall enough without a pedestal. Now that a couple decades have passed I do notice that some of the hate for Nickelback has subsided and I am glad for that as I felt like it was not deserved; makes me wonder what their reception would be if they started out now.

Side Note: Hero by Chad Kroeger for the Spiderman Soundtrack is a Great Song!

Songs to get you off their back

“Lullaby”

“When We Stand Together”

“Too Bad”

Imagine Dragons

These guys are HUGE so its hard to call them underappreciated but remember the criteria this time is don’t deserve the hate. I suppose these guys just got way too big way too fast that naturally haters started coming out of their hiding places. I guess that was in 2017 with their album release Evolve where the hate took off but I want to take a moment to explore their first album Night Visions. This one had some amazing songs painting Imagine Dragons as an extremely promising band (granted more demonstrative in instruments than later albums). “Radioactive” is an amazing track; I was nearly obsessed with it for time there; really introduced us to the vocalist’s style. Then tempo and thunderous percussion really carry you through that song. “It’s Time” is perhaps their flirtation with Indie rock before their massive following blew that direction up; but that’s a solid track with the ringing hook. The other masterpiece on this album, “Demons”. To me these lyrics are very relatable and powerful and conveyed in quite the poetic way. The pace is not too quick, but it really sneaks up to you how much build up is occurring to that final verse (Signified by the pitch increase in that verse).

Which brings me to the Evolve album where I’d say is when the majority of the hate began. The sound changed to a bit more of an arena pleasing sound; Pop-rock maybe. I can hear what the critics say but even so they are still solid songs. “Whatever it takes” is catchy as hell; that tempo is awesome; that interlude where it gets crazy and he is just spitting rhymes as a great interlude. “Believer”, their most popular song, isn’t guilty of deserving hate either. Sure its not really rock anymore but it’s a refreshing sound in the dwells of pop that is just insanely repetitive. Speaking of repetitive, “Thunder”, ‘nuff said.

Still, their overall vibe in my opinion is this sound that I feel like is passing off between bands from era to era; let me know if you notice the same thing. U2 was the original sound here, then Coldplay took that sound and put their stamp on it, then Imagine Dragons ran with it for a bit (though I think they are losing their connection just a bit from that aspect). With connections to U2 and Coldplay, you probably aren’t far off from something good, but I don’t believe that means they have to be AMAZING just because their play counts are.

Songs to get you off their back

“Demons”

“Radioactive”

“Whatever It Takes”