The Tiger

Once upon a time there existed a northern territory called Canada. In this territory nothing much happened, and nobody did anything of significance. Canada had only two chief exports. The first of these exports was a pointless "sport" called hockey, which, after trying to compete with boxing and mixed martial arts audiences, lost all viewers and quickly fell into obscurity, eventually becoming extinct. Even today most people have never heard of the sport.

Canada's second chief export was Nickelback, a musical group that rose to popularity 8 years ago. Nickelback claimed to have played music in the rock 'n' roll genre, and for a time this ruse worked. The band managed to sell millions upon millions of records. Each of the band's releases managed to sell more than the last, culminating with "All the Right Reasons," which somehow managed to distribute an appalling 12 million records before President Schwarzenegger banned Nickelback's music in the 52 states in 2016. President Bono expanded this law to an embargo of all Canadian music in 2028.

For a time Nickelback was one of the most popular and best-selling musical groups on the planet. That is, until the band released "Dark Horse," which proved to be the record that finally opened the eyes of all the millions of ignorant consumers who had until that point blindly allowed the Canadians to spoon-feed them hours of sonic drivel.

What really caused Nickelback's downfall after the release of "Dark Horse" is not entirely clear, but one thing is certain: never again did a pop artist attempt to shield himself under the guise of another genre. This was Nickelback's fatal error: For 10 years the Canadian quartet purveyed a brand of music that was nothing more than pop, yet tried (and succeeded for a time) to convince listeners that what the band was playing was actually rock 'n' roll.

Of course, we know now what rock 'n' roll truly is - men like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were the originators of the genre, and groups like The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin carried on its torch. Nickelback's time posing as a rock band is one of the greatest farces in history; Hitler's anti-Semitic propaganda during the Holocaust, the American "Red Scare" during the time of McCarthyism and Nickelback are all prime examples of what happens when a minority manages to brainwash the masses.

Just as Hitler's and McCarthy's contrived lies and peddled fiction were eventually disproven and their transparency presented to the world, so too were those of Nickelback in the aftermath of "Dark Horse." The album, you see, was simply too bad to pass unnoticed. Each song was nearly entirely the result of polished production by the then-respected Mutt Lange (who, after he escaping into self-imposed exile and descending into mania, died less than a decade after the record's release).

But even Lange's efforts could not disguise the fact that the group had no real musical talent, and merely took pieces of other artists to create their music.

Additionally, the group prided itself in being able to transcend genres and straddle radically different audiences; Nickelback maintained supremacy over both rock and pop charts and played harder songs for the males and ballads for the females.

This would have continued to work, however, if not for two fatal mistakes. First, Nickelback used essentially the same template for "Dark Horse" as they did for "All the Right Reasons." Each record featured 11 songs of original music, and each interspersed ballads into pseudo-rock tunes at the same intervals.

Each passed off rock as pop and combined elements of what the group thought to be metal and country to give the illusion of originality.

Nickelback's most grievous error occurred with the inclusion of a 12th song on "Dark Horse." Track 12 was a cover of "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," originally performed by the revered Sir Elton John.

Had Nickelback not covered this song, they could have continued their criminal offenses on music indefinitely, but when a group committing a travesty to rock on as grand a scale as Nickelback managed, it performs a legitimate rock song by a legitimate rock musician, Nickelback's fallacy as a rock group became too obvious to ignore.

And so, all the men who thought they were listening to rock realized for the first time that all the so-called hard rock tunes they banged their heads to were actually crafted to attract female audiences.

The men went back and listened to Nickelback's back catalogue; at each step of Nickelback's career, these men realized that the group pushed their crime farther and farther until the travesty of "Dark Horse."

And the women all realized that they, too, were being conned; it at long last occurred to them that Nickelback's music was specifically tailored to attract possessors of vaginas and breasts to live concerts to enhance the maximum Nickel back experience, and for a greater chance to enjoy backstage pleasures with attractive ladies.

Most of all, though, the women finally opened their ears and for once paid attention to Nickelback's lyrics: nearly every "hard-rock" song written for the men that the women never paid attention to and skipped on the CD consisted exclusively of lyrics subjected women to sexual favors, objectifying women and glorifying male misogyny.

Both genders experienced severe post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide rates among this population reached a high of 85 percent (which, considering the millions that Nickelback conned, was an incredibly high number of people).

Men became confused of their gender, and sex-changes and transvestitism hit all-time highs.

Nickelback was forever banished from the United States, and other insignificant Canadian musicians such as Avril Lavigne, Sum 41 and Theory of a Deadman were all also exiled from the American market, guilty by association.

And this is why today we do not address the singer and chief conspirator of Nickelback by name, and know the criminal only as He Who Must Not Be Named.

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