I'm a hobbiest guitarist, and I listen to a broad range of stuff, from Flamenco to Jazz to death metal. If it has percussively strummed stringed instruments in it, I'll probably listen to it.
I don't think NB are virtuoso musicians at all. Are they my favorite band? Not even close. Not even on the map really, except maybe as part of the background music at a mediocre summer BBQ. I often refer to bands like NB as lawn mowing music - the stuff you can listen to when its 80% drowned out by the noise, and not miss much.
If you take acts like Nickleback as a baseline for contemporary pop rock, I think they are pretty darn good at what they do. They have put together a catalog of music that entire stadiums full of people will go to listen to. I think being able to write catchy pop rock tunes is harder than it looks. How many bar bands have you watched that play one of their own tunes, and it blows. If you had a band of NB's calibre playing that bar, they'd blow the roof off, relatively speaking.
If I could write pop rock tunes that would sell millions of copies, I most certainly would. But I can't...it's not as easy as it looks.
It's the same thing here on CP - we can talk about career minor league players all we like from the comfy confines of CP, but the reality is, even a mediocre minor leaguer is head and toes above most other people that play hockey.
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-Scott
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