Nickel owing

A consideration of the video for the UK's current number two single, the allegedly self-parodic Rockstar by Nickelback. No way are we putting a sell-through link up for that.



(You'd be surprised how difficult this is to find on YouTube, probably at Roadrunner Records' behest. Presumably its big plan of last year to get every music video ever online went west somewhere.)


0:00 Big old breath by Kroeger to start, and already his malign influence is corrupting the kids.
0:05 People must walk into that thing all the time.
0:09 Lauren, nee James, Harries gets a jolt as she finds out what she will look like in old age.
0:12 Billy Gibbons, a man who seems unsure what his actual legacy is with every passing offer, does voiceovers on the track. He has some skulls. This posits him as some sort of antibody figure, we'd guess.
0:14 Wayne Gretzky can't quite believe how much Roadrunner are paying for this either.
0:18 A second afterwards she realised her hula-hoop had been half-inched.
0:23 Gene Simmons. He might have been successful in his life.
0:31 The news that this seems to be a patrolled demilitarised zone they're filming in is disheartening.
0:32 ALERT***SELFAWARE IRONY ALERT***SELFAWARE
0:36 It's unsurprising, but proof at last that Playboy Bunnies are less allurring the harder they try.
0:39 Woman works out she has the gift cheek. And cheeks.
0:41 Busking going successfully in that outfit with a sax? Didn't think so.
0:43 Lime green trousers as well!
0:57 Exactly what style of music has this woman been told she's recording a video for?
1:00 Noodles. In a Chinese restaurant. Yes. Well done.
1:02 What is the girl on the left counting up? Syllables?
1:08 Ah, the North Americans who've been asked to cast a man in London sight unseen.
1:13 God, is he still going?
1:21 We hear Josh Homme can do this,
1:23 You'll catch your death etc. Not knowing whether to accentuate the cleavage or twirl the necklace, here she wisely does both.
1:27 The woman on the left is not the first or last person to equate arena rock with vigorous pointing in stages, but she might well be the most forceful.
1:30 What is Nelly Furtado trying to exude here? It's not sex appeal, we can see that.
1:43 Not even Vernon Kay would have picked him.
1:48 Autographs, see. It all works together eventually.
1:53 Yeah. Hilarious.
1:59 The Playboy Mansion. Mecca for a large swathe of American major label musicians of all genres. Hence, the place we least want to go in the world, Peterborough included.
2:01 Bloke on the right can have no idea what that on his T-shirt represents.
2:09 To the Reichstag and an amateur beatdown. Right at the end, the bloke's clearly looking for the quick escape route.
2:12 When all else fails, go Titanic.
2:16 Lupe Fiasco believes the way to rock posing is through the mounting of kitchenware.
2:17 They saw her coming in the boutique.
2:26 Rather late in the day, and surely against the director's wishes, an Australian woman attempts to invent a dance routine for the chorus.
2:28 Others have other ideas, just not one they all agree on.
2:39 How are they going to explain this to their parents?
2:55 Hi ho, indeed, hi ho. Judging by his unease, all his workmates must have scarpered when they saw the crew coming.
3:05 The gut-enhancing bodypop is never a good look.
3:11 Miss All-California Gwenno Pipette Lookalike 2007 overemotes to a mighty degree. Fists and everything.
3:12 As a pleasing juxtaposition, he's just not trying.
3:19 Yeah, alright, laying it on a bit thick now. Wherever these people come from, it's unlikely Hooters' CEO sleeps any worse at night for knowing of their existence.
3:43 This kid's not doing us any favours.
3:47 What every good singing star needs on their tourbus - a wall mounted trumpet and a nightmarish caricature of themselves.
3:56 Looking rather too pleased with the idea of drug dealing there, Mr Nugent and your stupid beard.
4:00 Still got it. Admittedly with more than a puck's width to aim for.
4:04 At least they avoided the temptation of an ultra-quick edit of everyone who's appeared.
4:05 They all paid.
4:11 Formed a band, they formed a band. Look at them, they formed a band. And, given they must know which band it is - one of them seems to be walking off already - they're overtly smug about it too.

NB. We may well have missed many identities and references in that writeup. Frankly, we don't care.