Imagine crossing Shania with "You Shook Me All Night Long" and adding in a guy…who can barely sing who made his name singing anthems for guys who believe in brewskis and girls who have more dreams than triumphs.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll end up with Nickelback’s new song, entitled "Gotta Be Somebody".<\/p>\n
This is a head-turner.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not the Nickelback you’ve known, but something more akin to Boston, a sweeter, rocking sound.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d like to tell you it sucks, but IT DOESN’T!<\/p>\n
First time through, you’re scratching your head, because it’s so DIFFERENT from what’s come before.\u00c2\u00a0 But the SWEETNESS enraptures you, the same Beach Boys sunniness\/singalong quality that Mutt added to AC\/DC.<\/p>\n
And, once you’ve finished deciding it’s trash, but that you’ve got to hear it again to be sure, you dial it back up and you say…\u00c2\u00a0 FUCK, they’re gonna get a TON of airplay.\u00c2\u00a0 MUTT’S DONE IT AGAIN!<\/p>\n
Where could Nickelback go?\u00c2\u00a0 Their first hit was by far their best.\u00c2\u00a0 If this were a different era, with more rock on Top Forty, they would have been a one hit wonder.\u00c2\u00a0 But in an era where you’ve got to scream like James Hetfield or be an emo boy to have any cred, no one makes straight ahead rock anymore.\u00c2\u00a0 Nickelback’s got the field to itself.\u00c2\u00a0 And, because Chad Kroeger is just too old and too unattractive to play the sold out pretty boy, he can’t, and they end up with some weird CREDIBILITY!<\/p>\n
Not to you.\u00c2\u00a0 You hate Nickelback.\u00c2\u00a0 And I can understand your position.\u00c2\u00a0 But no one is listening to you, except maybe your spouse.\u00c2\u00a0 And rock purists are known for being single, for being geeks.\u00c2\u00a0 But, if you’ve got a life, if music is not the number one thing in your pantheon, you’re going to drive down the boulevard with "Gotta Be Somebody" cranked and you’re gonna feel GOOD!<\/p>\n
If you hate hip-hop, if you hate Mariah\/Christina melisma and Pussycat Dolls confection, you’re going to gravitate to "Gotta Be Somebody" like a rock star to K-Y.<\/p>\n
Even though the downloadable MP3 is ripped at a 260 VBR, the track still sounds pretty bad.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t mastered for quality, not for acute listening environments, but shitty car stereo systems.\u00c2\u00a0 The girls with big hair and the guys who are waiting for mullets to come back will be banging the dashboard and Nickelback will be counting the dough while you sit there with your sinking portfolio, bitching.<\/p>\n
This ain’t that different from Def Leppard’s breakthrough, "Pyromania".\u00c2\u00a0 Rick Rubin might get all the press, but the real record producer, the giant in stature not size, is Robert John "Mutt" Lange.<\/p>\n
He cut his teeth doing soundalikes in his native South Africa.\u00c2\u00a0 He can write every song on your album and sing it too.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s the ultimate hands-on operator.\u00c2\u00a0 Which Rick Rubin’s clients might not need, but so many do.<\/p>\n
The more you listen, the more the flourishes reveal themselves.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s that distant, crying sound in the intro?\u00c2\u00a0 Like a guitar played over the hills and not quite so far away?\u00c2\u00a0 The Cher-like bed to the verse, with Chad singing an actual melody.\u00c2\u00a0 The disco-like drums and then the way everything drops out and you’re ASSAULTED when everything comes back in.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the sound that sold in excess of 100 million albums.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s Mutt’s signature.\u00c2\u00a0 Credible rock\/country with a poppy sheen laid on top.\u00c2\u00a0 If Chad weren’t straining his vocal cords and you got a nineteen year old babe to sweetly vocalize it would sound exactly like PURE POP FOR NOW PEOPLE!<\/p>\n
Actually, just like all those profiteers covered and sold covers of Kid Rock’s "All Summer Long" on iTunes popsters should IMMEDIATELY cover "Gotta Be Somebody".\u00c2\u00a0 It would be much better with even…Avril Lavigne covering it.\u00c2\u00a0 Better yet, SHANIA TWAIN!<\/p>\n
Shania’s done.\u00c2\u00a0 Hate to say it, but Mutt had the talent.<\/p>\n
Don’t evaluate this musically, but as a business proposition.\u00c2\u00a0 And you care about business, otherwise you wouldn’t be ranking out all the big Top Forty hits.\u00c2\u00a0 Mutt and Nickelback have threaded the needle, made the perfect song for TODAY!\u00c2\u00a0 And I’ll bet the album is loaded with tons more.\u00c2\u00a0 So, while everybody on TMZ and Perez can barely go platinum, this album will sell and sell and sell.<\/p>\n
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