Tag Archives: rock

Articles, Features, Video

MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 87: CROWDED HOUSE

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The other week, I made a very big assertion with regards to the criteria of this blog series list. And it was that there wasn’t a concrete criteria, that virtually anyone could get in if they were ‘influential’ or ‘popular’ enough– a metric which in some ways is extremely bias. Regardless if an artist debuted in the 80’s or in the 2010’s; regardless if they had a hit in the 90’s or had 5 hits in the 90’s; regardless if they were known just for their music or for their life outside of music too… if you glance through our list, you’d find a vast smorgasbord of different artists, who in my opinion each deserve their place in their own special way. And because you could conceivably argue that each artist deserved to be there, and each artist was vastly different to each other… ergo this meant that there was hardly any criteria for inclusion on such a subjective list as this. But as I pondered this past week as I was ruminating as to who to write about, it struck me that there was indeed a bit of a pattern with the artists whom I was choosing to write about, and with whom Jon was choosing to write about, even if we didn’t know it at the time.

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 86: SNOW PATROL

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Sometimes I wonder if I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. It’s been about a couple of months since I had a crazy idea to swap blog series with Jon (as in I write about influential artists of all time, and he write about artists who are virtually certain to be influential in the near future!); and it’s been a bit more taxing that I thought it was going to be. Not that I’m complaining… which I’m not, because I’ve been musically stretched beyond anything that I even thought I would be, and more than I ever was when I was writing my portion of the blog series all that time ago. It’s just that at this stage of the blog series, from entries #81-#100, you’d think that the 20 artists would be self-explanatory and would reveal themselves like the drop of a hat. And you’d be right… somewhat. Artists like Tim McGraw, Jennifer Lopez and Spice Girls were in the list for as long as I could remember- so there were no surprises there. But Gwen Stefani and Leona Lewis surprised me in a good way- they weren’t in the list for very long, and the fact that I was so compelled to write about these artists meant that there was no room for Blake Shelton and Norah Jones (at the moment). I’ve noticed that even at this stage, I can be enamoured and fascinated by the discography and life of an artist so much that I could include them on a whim at the expense of another; and that’s ok. At no point during this process of writing did I feel as if Gwen and Leona weren’t worthy of being included in a subjective list such as this. But it did give me pause and reason for reflection for the remainder 15 names.

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Music Reviews

Cassadee Pope – What The Stars See (feat. Karen Fairchild & Lindsay Ell) [Single]

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Independent

Release Date: May 7th 2021

Reviewed by: Joshua Andre

Cassadee Pope– What The Stars See (feat. Karen Fairchild & Lindsay Ell) – Single (Amazon mp3/iTunes)

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MOMENTOUS MONDAYS: INFLUENTIAL ARTISTS OF ALL TIME – WEEK 79: NICKELBACK

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Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I wonder what it’s like to be hated, disliked, or even universally panned, as a music artist. What goes through a bands’ mind (or a solo artist for that matter) if a lot of the publicity is negative, a lot of the reviews of their albums are negative, and just the vibe of the critics towards this artist/group is negative, full stop…can an artist/band still be impactful, influential, and the rest of it, in spite of that? Yes, if you’re reading between the lines here, and you’ve read the title of this blog, then you’d know which artist I’m about to delve into today. You guessed it, it’s about time, after 78 blogs, to tackle Nickelback as blog #79. And I know, it’s probably a long time coming for me to say my two cents worth about Chad Kroger and co. but here I am, around a couple of years after my first blog to talk about a band that quite possibly, alongside Creed (I dunno why though) are two of the most ‘hated’ bands of all time…ever. And what do I do with that information though- do I let this piece of knowledge (reliable or not), bias my own opinions of the band, and thus, sway this blog post altogether? Or should I just write about the band regardless, and form my own opinion, nevertheless? Nickelback have been singing and making music for quite some time- over 20 years in fact. Chad’s distinct voice and gravely texture to it, makes the band one of the most unique in modern music history- and maybe it’s because of this uniqueness that it seems like Nickelback’s talent, can be viewed by the public as fading away, in place of a band’s ‘brand’, for lack of a better term. Whatever the case of how the band got to be known by the public as one of the most hated bands (maybe not only in America but around the world too), what we know now is this- that Nickelback are hated for some reason, and that I was hesitant in writing this blog post, until now, of course. I mean, what do you write when you’re tackling a band that is unfortunately, universally disliked? Do you write anything? Nothing? Write, but then realise that you’re writing about something else entirely? Nickelback are indeed so much more than just a band to be ‘hated’, and as I’ve listened to them this past week and a bit, I’ve grown to appreciate Chad’s singing style, and writing style. This is a band that has soldiered on in spite of popular opinion; and have continued to weather the proverbial ‘storm’ which is their music career thus far. For a band to last this long in the music industry, let alone last this long in the music industry with a lot of ‘hate’, dislike, shade, and generalised panning, is nothing short of a miracle. It really is. Kudos and credit to Chad and the band for continuing to press on through these bouts of adversity, because if such hurling of insults happened to any other band, I’m not sure how they’d react. I mean, lets be honest right here. I’m not your average rock and roll fan. I like the odd occasional band here and there (Lifehouse, the Goo Goo Dolls, Daughtry, Skillet, and now to some extent Creed), but I’m not into your heavy rock that Nickelback seems to ‘flirt’ with on occasion throughout their discography that I’ve listened to, this past week or so. Hearing them is like the mixing of radio friendly rock and the hardness of a band like Hoobastank or Evanescence (I mean, both Hoobastank and Evanescence are fine, it’s just that both these bands aren’t necessarily my go-to if I want to hear rock music). And that’s interesting and weird at the same time. And maybe it’s just the confusion that surrounds the band’s definite musical genre (Is it hard rock? Is it radio friendly rock?), or maybe it’s because of how Chad Kroger’s actual singing voice can seem a little jarring if you hear Nickelback on repeat for more than 30 minutes at a time. Needless to say, in spite of my own hesitation to announce the band as one of my favourites (rather, it’d be a band that I would thoroughly respect at the end of the day, but won’t necessarily seek them out later on for my general listening pleasure), Nickelback continue to sell, and for a band to be in 2021, still musically active…well, they must be doing something right, right?

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