In a wonderfully well-written and entertaining opinion piece published by Esquire yesterday, author Matt Miller has finally written what so many of us have been thinking: that The Chainsmokers are truly the “Nickelback” of their genre – the electronic music world.
As much as we respect this duo for the name that they’ve made for themselves, this was read that had many of our team laughing (because Nickelback, right?). In sum, Miller writes that The Chainsmokers are traveling down the same path in EDM that Nickelback did, with an uncanny number of similarities, including their Grammy nominations and their similarities in selling their “lowest-common-denominator” sound via shameless sexism, noting that “they’re doing for EDM what Nickelback did to post-grunge arena rock: becoming immensely popular by using the worst cliches the genre has to offer, and then taking it down to the river and putting it out of its misery.”
Though you should absolutely give this piece, in its entire glory, a full read, here are a few of our favorite parts:
“With its ubiquity, Nickelback became the perfect scapegoat for the downfall of early 2000s cock-rock. The Chainsmokers are poised to do the same with their pop-focused lite-EDM. They’ve distilled the sound of the times into a handful of popular pervasive hits by stealing from nearly every act that came before them. They’ve shown that the genre is badly in need of innovation—and fast.”
“Like Nickelback, The Chainsmokers are being used as a tentpole of both the Grammys and the music industry. In this transaction, neither the Grammys nor the record business needs the artists they promote to be particularly good. They just need a pre-packaged mass market sound that is pervasive enough to make money. Like Nickelback, The Chainsmokers are grouped among artists far more deserving of each award. And like Nickelback, The Chainsmokers should lose.”
Matt, props to you for an amazing article, and thank you for finally making this correlation clear. You can read the full piece here.
The Chainsmokers have since responded to the piece.
