I remember when Nickelback came out and I assumed that they were another flash-in-the-pan Canadian content filler. Well, they have proved me wrong, but I kind of wish that they never did. If you close your eyes and listen to Nickelback you might be convinced that Cher went heavy petal (my clever title for this unique heavy-metal-pop hybrid). The earnest forced vocals of Chad Kroeger make him sound as if he is singing while perched atop a porcelain throne after consuming too many bran muffins. Now, I am completely unaware of this group's full catalogue, but everything I hear on the radio makes me wince. The following is a deconstruction of their popular song, "Photograph":

Look at this photograph
Everytime I do it makes me laugh
How did our eyes get so red
And what the hell is on Joey's head

Very good, graph rhymes with laugh. Maybe you can describe the picture a little more because I don't understand how red-eye can be construed as humorous. If poor photography strikes you as funny, you should see Miss Weston's grade four class' photography contest which would undoubtedly be a veritable gold mine of humour for you. And that thing on Joey's head? That's called a mullet, the legacy of your generation.

And this is where I grew up
I think the present owner fixed it up
I never knew we'd ever went without
The second floor is hard for sneaking out

Unfortunately, up only rhymes with up because they are the same word which, technically, means that they don't actually rhyme. The verse begins on the subject of the house and ends on the subject of the house but the third line suddenly inserts this random thought: "I never knew we'd ever went without." I suppose you can connect your home to your socio-economic status, but from the music video the house looks pretty nice. I mean, even if it was in a fairly poor state before the present owner fixed it up we're still talking about a nice two-story middle-class home. Maybe you didn't receive all of the flashy electronic gifts your friends got for Christmas but your parents cared enough about you to make it difficult for you to sneak out of your home at night.

And this is where I went to school
Most of the time had better things to do
Criminal record says I've broke in twice
I must have done it half a dozen times

School and do don't rhyme but they do have assonance, which I suppose is more acceptable than trying to rhyme up with up. What did you have to do that was more important than going to school? Maybe you can fill us in on this later, what's more important now is that you broke into your school. The idea that you broke into your school a half a dozen times doesn't blend well with the idea that you ostensibly had better things to do than go to school. Apparently, you were so desperate for school that you broke into school during your spare time. Not only that, but you were so bad at breaking into your school that you were caught one third of the time.

I wonder if it's too late
Should I go back and try to graduate
Life's better now than it was back then
If I was them I wouldn't let me in

It is never too late to graduate, Chad, or to take some remedial English courses. So life's better now than it was back then? I'll assume you're speaking economically because the whole song consists of you waxing poetic on how many great memories you have of growing up. So here you go again, complaining about your socio-economic problems when it is clear from a latter section of the song that you at least had access to a vehicle as a youngster which makes the whole complaint about how bad things were back then fall kind of flat. I wouldn't worry about them not letting you into school, because I'm sure that you have earned enough money off of your heavy petal music to hire a tutor.

Oh oh oh oh Oh God I, I
Every memory of looking out the back door
I have the photo album spread out on my bedroom floor
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye goodbye
Every memory of walking out the front door
I found the photo of the friend I was looking for
It's hard to say it, time to say it
Goodbye goodbye

God? What does he have to do with it? Nothing? Oh, okay, you just thought it sounded kind of cool to invoke his name? Oh, I see now. "Every memory of looking out the back door" and "every memory of walking out the front door" are sentence fragments which I'll forgive if you explain to me whether you're saying goodbye to your friends, your memories, your photo album, or the photo of the friend that you were looking for. Are you contemplating suicide? I contemplate radiocide everytime I hear this song. I usually just turn it off, though, because I'm not a violent person.

Remember the old arcade
Blew every dollar that we ever made
The cops hated us hanging out
They say somebody went and burned it down

Let me see if I understand this correctly, because earlier you said that you didn't go to school because most of the time you had better things to do. Basically, you're saying that playing pong or pinball was more important than going to school? I can understand that it was more fun to do that a couple times a month but if you did that most of the time it would get pretty lame after a while. Also, I don't know which town in Alberta has an arcade where the cool kids hang out, but here in Ontario we have this stigma attached to arcades where it is, you know, sort of a place for the geeky types --- not that there is anything wrong with being a geek. I find it difficult to picture the cops coming down hard on arcade nerds, but maybe you have a photograph of this that can help me out here. I should also add that when you follow the line about the cops hating you for hanging out at the arcade with a line about somebody burning it down it seems to imply that the police had a hand in the arson. Okay, I'm being facetious, but it's kind of fun.

We used to listen to the radio
And sing along with every song we know
We said someday we'd find out how it feels
To sing to more than just the steering wheel


Radio and know do rhyme, but since you're talking about something that occurred in the past, know should be knew which, incidentally, doesn't rhyme with radio. Hey, wow, you found out how it feels to sing to more than just a steering wheel! How does it feel? Because for me it's pretty torturous and it makes me wish that you were once again serenading inanimate objects.

Kim's the first girl I kissed
I was so nervous that I nearly missed
She's had a couple of kids since then
I haven't seen her since God knows when

I can relate to nearly missing on the first kiss so I can't actually make fun of that. Although, I suppose those who preach abstinence could reference your song when talking about the slippery slide of intimacy. I mean, Kim kissed you, and now look where she is, with two kids in the middle of who-knows-where. Ladies, take note, you need to resist the urge to kiss arcade geeks until after you're married to them.

I miss that town I miss the faces
You can't erase You can't replace it
I miss it now I can't believe it
So hard to stay Too hard to leave it

If you miss the town, why is it so hard to stay while at the same time being too hard to leave? I can't believe it either.

If I could relive those days
I know the one thing that would never change,

What would never change? Your educational abandonment? The arcade arson? Joey's mullet? I know that you repeat the chorus at this point but there's nothing in there that you could possibly be referring to.

Also, I don't like your goatee.