I love Nickelback.
Since the dawn of time it has been quite trendy to hate them. But with last summer’s resurgence of normcore, maybe Nickelback finally has a place in the lexicon of pop culture’s tastemakers.
And this is Stripper Music Monday and since when do strippers give a fuck about being ahead of the curve regarding trend forecasting? We don’t. We care about money. When the DJ makes some lethargic attempt at a beat-match to crank up the latest Nickelback jam, a stripper knows she’s about to make some coin.
Because every single Nickelback releases immediately becomes the next douche anthem.
“Rockstar” is the basic bro’s song for when he wants to feel like a filthy baller:
I’m gonna dress my ass with the latest fashion
Get a front door key to the Playboy mansion
Gonna date a centerfold that loves to blow my money for me.
— “Rockstar”
Can you blame him? These wholesome Canadian boys are the slightly less filthy versions of Kid Rock and only wistfully as naughty as the bad boys of Motley Crue. They are the house brand of coolness that every radio station will play to fill time and keep their commuters tuned in.
I like the freckles on your chest
And I like the way you like me best
And I like the way you’re not impressed
While you put me to the test
I like the white stains on your dress
— “Figured You Out”
I want all my basic bros out there to feel like filthy ballers. Get gritty, grimy and tacky and throw away whatever money you probably shouldn’t be spending and let’s all have a good fucking time drinking well whiskey.
What’s more is that I’m pretty sure Chad Kroeger is in our corner when it comes to writing rock ballads about enterprising sluts:
Well she ain’t no Cinderella
When she’s getting undressed
‘Cause she rocks it like the naughty wicked witch of the west
Far too pretty to be giving it cheap
That’s why she’s making six figures working three days a week
— “Shakin’ Hands”
Unlike so many other bands, Nickelback ain’t perpetuating no sad-stripper trope. Chad Kroger worships our freckles and enthusiastic sluttery. Even if he himself is a Basic Bro and probably not well-versed in the writings of bell hooks, at least he is relatively stoked about women doing whatever the fuck they want.
Call it nepotism, but I am going to argue that it requires some skill to create the most derivative and catchy rock and roll out there for the Everyman. Nickelback is unpretentious and celebrates the good times no one is having anymore because the Basic Bro is broke, underpaid or unemployed, and probably facing foreclosure on a home he thought he could afford 15 years ago. Times are still shitty for the working class man and woman and don’t us strippers know it.
So blast me some of this rock shit and let’s throw around some fives like it’s going out of style.
Rockstar
Figured You Out
Shakin’ Hands
Their brand new single, Edge Of A Revolution
THANK YOU for giving me another reason to hate Nickelback. Those lyrics *rolls eyes*
Oh for fuck’s sake they could be spouting Bell Hooks in their lyrics, they’d still be fucking rubbish and they need to be scourged from the planet and wiped from human memory. Worst T&S article ever, and associating us with this shit has done more damage to the cause of sex workers than any abolitionist article ever written. I’m deadly serious.
Do the DJs ever play ’90’s Nine Inch Nails? Like stuff from Reznor’s first two CD’s? Songs like “Closer” and EVERYTHING off the Pretty Hate Machine CD? They should. Many of the lyrics are empowering, not degrading, and will probably make dancers want to dance and watchers want to spend money.
Here’s what I say of Nine Inch Nails in my book:
As a whore I’m aware that men seem to know that a cathartic hour of sex and talk, especially with someone detached yet understanding, can be just what’s required for the clearing of their heads.
Could that be the male recollection of Goddess, temple rite, and priestess?
I feel that the musician, Trent Reznor, the talent behind Nine Inch Nails, expresses that truth in his famous song, “Closer.” All through the song, he refers to a “you”, and this “you” is a person who allows him to rapaciously possess her. In “you” Reznor finds his “help”, his way to be “somebody else”, his solace that he pointedly and passionately aligns with the holy and the sacred. When he fucks “you” just “like an animal”, “you” bring him “closer to God.” That unrestrained slaking of sexual thirst is the sure way to a redemption. His words are not sentimental, they don’t evoke romance, but they do convey an atonement, a sharing of release, that eases “isolation” and “the hate that it brings,” and renders something “perfect” out of “flawed.”
Nowhere in modern poetry or lyrics has there ever been such an ardent commingling of the two words “fuck” and “God.”
http://www.Amazon.com/AphroditePhoenix/e/B00CKRCDGA
LOL “Closer” is from NIN’s second “full length album” but certainly not among their “first two CDs.” Aside from that one song, NIN is not really a Basic Bro’s good-times music.
I think Gotta get me some and Midnight Queen can be added to that list.