Music Review: Nickelback "This Afternoon"

Nickelback

This Afternoon

Album: Dark Horse

Year: 2010

                           Chad Kroeger is an aimless slacker in the obnoxious “This Afternoon.”

                       Laughter with some crowd chatter and a slapsticky guitar open the single, setting a brainless tone.   Kroeger’s plan for the day is smoking marijuana and not much else. He brags that he grows it in his backyard. It would make Cheech and Chong, his idols, envious. His kitchen floor is littered with empty bottles. He puts them in a bag so his friends will go the store later. He and his roommates need their beer. (“Lookin' like another Bob Marley day/Hittin' from the bong like a diesel train/And I'm down with hangin' out this afternoon/We've got weeds in the backyard 4 feet tall/Cheech and Chong prob'ly woulda' smoked 'em all/
So I'm out on the couch this afternoon/Beer bottles layin' on the kitchen floor/If we take 'em all back we can buy some more/So I doubt we'll go without this afternoon.”)

                   He tells whoever wants to join that they are planning an all-nighter in the pre-chorus. Once they get started drinking, they can’t stop. (“You better hang on if you're taggin' along/Cause we'll be doin this 'till 6 in the mornin'Nothin' wrong with goin' all night long/Tough to put the brakes on/Doesn't matter when you'd rather.”)

               They all get ready to go the bar and get sloppy drunk. Even they are hungover, they’ll plan to the same thing for the next day. (“Get up, and go out/Me and all my friends/We drink up, We fall down/And then we do it all again/Just sittin around, hangin out this afternoon.”)

                His landlord is ticked off at him. However, he doesn’t care. He’s going to test his landlord’s limits every chance he can. He left to go to a dive bar. There, they have an old-fashioned jukebox that plays 70s music. It’s currently set Creedance Clearwater Revival’s  cover of “Suzy Q,” a favorite he likes to listen to as he drinks. (“Landlord said I should buy a tent/But he can kiss my ass cause I payed the rent/So I doubt he'll kick me out this afternoon/Down on the corner in a seedy bar/Juke box crankin' out the CCR/Had a few to Suzy Q this afternoon.”)

         Pre-chorus and chorus are sung again.

        He prefers to live life without any structure in the bridge. Time means nothing to him. He calls and texts his friends all day to see what they are up to. They don’t make a lot of money but they have fun. He thinks people shouldn’t be living their lives in cubicles, waiting for the weekend. (“Don't wanna wristwatch or an alarm clock/To see what time it is/From the moment I wake up I just love being with my friends /We barely get by, but have the best times/And hope it never ends /We drink all day till we fall down/So we can do it all again/It's not the human walk/It's the human race/If you ain’t livin on the edge /You're takin' too much space/So I doubt I'll figure out/Just what to do/'Bout to kick it around /Hangin out this afternoon.”)

            Pre-chorus and chorus are sung again.

        At the end, they tell everyone they do nothing all day six times. (“Just kickin’ around, hangin’ out this afternoon.”)

      Kroeger’s vocals are dazed and goofy. He wants live a life of leisure without any responsibility. Yet, he chides people for not living if they work. He’s not working for the man! He thinks he’s the cool, party guy everyone admires. However, he doesn’t see the people rolling his eyes at him and shaking their heads at his behavior.

       The droning guitar strums and strums, stuck on the same note. The drums in the chorus provide a reprieve from the monotony, but not long enough. Then, it’s back to same note again and annoying crowd chatter.

      The deadbeat “This Afternoon” is a joke but not the type it wants to be.