Marcel Winatschek

The Nickelback Problem

Avril Lavigne was the soundtrack to a specific kind of adolescent liberation—not the dangerous kind but the freeing kind, the kind that said you could be loud and difficult and not care what anyone thought and still be completely right about everything. She made rebellion feel accessible. That mattered.

And then she married Chad Kroeger.

I know. People are allowed to love whoever they love. I’m not here to police anyone’s relationship. But Nickelback represents something specific: a carefully engineered approximation of feeling, rock music with all the grit sandpapered off until what remains is smooth enough for dentist’s waiting rooms. The collision of these two worlds produced Let Me Go, a duet I cannot listen to without feeling something quietly collapse inside me.

It’s not even bad in an interesting way. It’s bad in a beige way. She used to make me want to climb out a window; now she’s making me want to close all the curtains and lie face-down on the floor. Nickelback singer. Christ.