TORONTO - Nickelback has just released one of the most anticipated albums of the year, "Dark Horse," and yet there have been virtually no profiles of the rock band in newspapers across the country.
It's not that journalists haven't asked to talk to frontman Chad Kroeger or one of his bandmates, but Nickelback has decided they've been burned and slagged enough times by the print media and they're only doing radio and television interviews, for now.
A spokesman for EMI Music Canada said the band's management had no comment on Nickelback's decision to reject interview requests. But given the glee and careful thought that reviewers have taken in thinking up clever ways to trash the Canadian band in the past, maybe it's understandable why Nickelback has an aversion to the media.
The New York Times said their 2005 album, "All The Right Reasons," had "the worst rock lyrics ever recorded." Rolling Stone denounced it as "so depressing, you're almost glad Kurt's not around to hear it" and the online authority www.allmusic.com said that with the band's fifth album, "Nickelback remain unchanged: they're still unspeakably awful."
Still, that album produced a handful of hits including "Photograph," "If Everyone Cared" and "Rockstar," and for two whole years it was one of the Top 30 bestselling albums in the United States, prompting the industry magazine Billboard to call "All The Right Reasons," "arguably the biggest rock album of the century so far."
But for every Nickelback fan there seems to be another two or three people who absolutely despise the band and the Internet is full of flame wars about why their music does or doesn't suck.
A popular clip on YouTube shows an infamous incident at a Portuguese rock festival in 2002, which resulted in the band ending their set after just two songs after getting pelted with rocks and water bottles.
In the video, Kroeger stops performing mid-song and asks the crowd, "You guys want to hear some rock 'n' roll or you want to go home?"
Moments later, a water bottle thrown from the crowd connects with the back of Kroeger's head and the band walks off stage while giving the audience the finger.
The video has been viewed about 1.7 million times and has prompted thousands of comments, both sympathetic and snarky.
"I officially love Portugal," wrote one user nicknamed Macr1n1, while WakeOfOrion888 said: "Well, I guess that's what you get for being a terrible excuse for a musician, making a terrible excuse for music."
Kroeger once told MuchMusic that the band's detractors are wrong to say they suck.
"(Millions) around the world will disagree with anybody who says that," he said. "Nickelback does not suck - if you don't like Nickelback, you don't like Nickelback - (but) Nickelback does not suck."
A high-profile Nickelback fan came out of the woodwork recently to publicly support them, much to the band's shock.
Coldplay singer Chris Martin told a radio station he has "nothing but respect" for Nickelback, who "take a lot of flak from people who have never done (anything) in their life."
"I think they're great. That is my final word," he said.
Kroeger told Billboard magazine he was caught off guard by the compliment from "an unlikely place."
"We were (surprised), and that was very, very flattering. We're big Coldplay fans, we think they're an amazing band," he said.
Nickelback is also getting some good reviews for "Dark Horse," from some of the very same publications that previously tore the band to shreds.
Rolling Stone magazine gave the album three-and-a-half stars out of five, and the New York Times gave it a fairly positive review - even though it also states that "Kroeger sings in his soulless rasp" and the band is known for "undeniably pretty melodies (with) literal, wildly unimaginative and often insipid lyrics."
But not all the reviews have been kind, like one from Toronto's Now magazine, which states: "Kroeger's voice sounds more like a wounded goat than ever before, and their blatantly recycled songs touch on familiar themes like strippers, sex, prostitutes, drugs, sex, drinking and sex."
And the English Daily Mirror newspaper said, "sniggering schoolboy rock was never so lame - nor as artistically bankrupt.
"Millions of people buy Nickelback albums, but millions people once voted for George W. Bush too. Both facts are equally baffling."
Earlier this year, Kroeger told Playboy magazine that bad reviews do sometimes bother him, although he tries to let criticism roll off his back.
"I've been bummed out for a day, sure," he said. "(But) at the end of the day, I'm just some guy who sings in a rock 'n' roll band. I'm not Hitler."