Nickelback imagines a world of love, honesty and humility (“If Everyone Cared”). The broken singer cries out to heaven, willing to turn over a new leaf on “Savin’ Me.”
“Next Contestant” finds a jealous guy seething as he watches lustful men and women coming on to his bartender girlfriend. That song and others include profanities and crass sexual references. An amorous young couple behave like “Animals” (he says, “Your mom … would be p—ed if she could see the parts of you that I’ve been kissing” and notes that his date is fondling him as he’s driving). While the intent of “Rockstar” may be to skewer celebrity excess, it seems to glamorize a world in which “the girls come easy and the drugs come cheap.” A randy pair persist in a dysfunctional romance simply for intercourse and oral sex (“Fight for All the Wrong Reasons”). “Photograph” fondly recalls high school rebellion that included using drugs, defying parents, and breaking and entering. During an ode to slain Pantera guitarist Darrell “Dimebag” Abbott, the vengeful singer tells the (albeit deceased) killer, “I cried alone and scratched your name on the side of a bullet.”
Sex. Jealousy. Vengeance. More sex. One can only hope frontman Chad Kroeger wrote “Savin’ Me” after penning the rest of this misguided, immoral disc.
