Music: All the Right Reasons

I would like to say something: I like Nickelback, or rather, I like some of their music. This is probably due to the fact that when I was a toddler, my parents bought those "Toddler Tunes" albums for long car trips (mostly up to my grandparent's house, 8-hour drive from our house without traffic or my dad confusing one dirt road for another), but switched the CD after 5 minutes (our car had a 6-disc CD changer, quite nice to have). This album, along with a blues collection, were the two things they'd switch to. The Toddler Tunes CD was taken out long ago, but the blues collection album still remains in slot 1, Eye to The Telescope (by K.T. Tunstall) remains in slot 5, and All The Right Reasons remains in slot 6. The CD full of other Nickelback songs my dad got from a friend remains in slot 4. We still use that car. Amazon link embedded in the image. No, the car on the cover is not the car I'm talking about, might as well get that out of the way.
Warning: this album review is going to be one of my longest ones yet.
Also, please follow this blog. If you do, then you'll know when I start posting the photos I've taken (I'm a novice photographer, aspiring novelist, and many other things, future lawyer and newbie engineer among them).

The Actual Review

Honestly, I don't know why so many people feel as if they have to insult those who like Nickelback. I get why people might not like their music, I, for one, don't like all of their music. However, I do find that I can connect with many of the songs in this album far more easily than I can connect with most music produced today. Maybe that's why people don't like Nickelback songs... many of them are easy to connect to reality in a significant way, and from my experience, many people don't like it when they find out that someone else thinks of reality in the same way they do. That, and all of the screaming in some of their songs.

To me, Savin' Me seems to be describing the thoughts of someone considering suicide. I haven't considered suicide or self-harm (closest I ever got was punching a brick wall, regretted that), but I do know people who have. 

Side of a Bullet sounds like a criticism of the US' eagerness for war. I know that most people there don't want war, but it seems as if the voices of those who object to war are drowned out by the voices of those who want it, which deeply upsets me. I know I might get a lot of heat for saying this, but I think there should be more steps added to the process of declaring war. That way, war is only declared when the people in power have the determination to finish the seemingly-endless amount of paperwork involved. Think about this statement: no one wins at war. All those involved lose quite a lot.

The lyrics of Rockstar are basically just a commentary on aspects of capitalism, how people idolize celebrities, and how many seem to think that being rich and famous will only make their lives better. News flash: money and fame don't solve all of life's issues. Although you may have money, that doesn't mean you have money to spend frivolously.

Remember how I mentioned my two previous schools in my review of Liberation Transmission by Lostprophets? Well, Photograph and If Everyone Cared evoke my memories of those schools, as well as many other things in my life. No matter what age I am, I begin recalling the past whenever I listen to these two songs. 

For some reason, when I listen to Next Contestant, I think of that once scene from Firefly where Nathan and his wife are in the bar, the one where some overly-patriotic drunkard is insulting Nathan because he's wearing a brown coat, and then when the drunk asks Nathan "What'cha gonna do about it?" Nathan says "Nothing. I just got you to face me so that she could get behind you." definitely one of the best bar fight scenes I've ever seen. I like Firefly more than I like Next Contestant, by the way. 

Overall, I enjoyed this album. Sure, I didn't like all of the tracks, but that's minor compared to the effects that certain tracks had on me. Also, this album does cause my imagination to go all over the place, even to places completely unrelated to the track I'm currently listening to, which is something that only Kaboom, DEMOlition, and Portal 2 [SONGS TO TEST BY] have been able to do. By the way, I have reviews posted for those three albums.