Set aside your music snobbery and forget the memes – Nickelback are actually good

‘For a long time, looking down one’s nose at Nickelback was the lazy person’s way of signalling that they had “good taste”.’ Photograph: Sean Kilpatrick/AP

For nearly 30 years, we’ve been living a lie. Too eager for the approval of others, too scared of being mocked, to own what we know to be true. It’s time we freed ourselves from this prison we’ve built around ourselves and finally admitted it: Nickelback are good.

The idea that consuming media is for fun as opposed to signalling some unearned superiority over others is an idea that many people are still getting used to. But this is how most people have always approached their TV, their movies and their music – and it’s why Nickelback, Creed, Lifehouse and every other 90s-era nu metal band featuring frontmen with soul patches making that “mmyerrrrh” sound are beginning to enjoy a critical revival.