Bob Cook said:
Kaylee said:
Bob Cook said:
Kaylee said:
A subsequent interview had one of the members talking about the band's phenomenal success in the midwest, and he held forth to say that the band was straightforward and no-frills, something appreciated by midwesterners and southerners.
No matter what act says that, it always comes out sounding like, "You have to be a moron to like our music."
Hinder, and their record company, certainly are bringing back one thing -- releasing a rocker as your first single, then following it with a power ballad.
Sorta like "We don't appeal to critics, we appeal to the real people out there."
Then and therefore, if you smell garbage, you're just being elitist.
To be fair, sometimes the slack-jawed yokels are right. For example, fans recognized the genius of Eddie Van Halen far before critics did. Critics HATED Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin for a long time. I seem to remember some Rolling Stone review book, pre-grunge, that had every Sabbath album with one star.
And there's nothing wrong with that.
As I'm fond of saying when it comes to my snob parents, yes, fine wine and good food is great, but so is Waffle House at 3 a.m. after a night of drinking cheap beer.
I think it's safe to say, though, that we won't be waking up a decade from now and realizing that we missed out on the genius that was Hinder. There's a difference between being panned for being different and being panned for being pablum.
I wouldn't have a problem with this band so much - there's a lot of crap out there, after all - if it wasn't for their attitude toward the whole thing. Everything I get from these corn-fed boozy roustabouts is that they're somehow here to SAVE rock and take it back to a simpler, more straightforward time.
Excuse me? What, a simpler, more straightforward time before Nickelback? Disturbed? Hoobastank?
Hinder seems to be on a crusade to take rock back from the wussies, even though it's the "wussies" who made rock what it was to begin with. Both the punk and metal movements, and later the (unfairly maligned) grunge movement, were made up of kids who didn't identify with the jocularity of the bands that Hinder draws on for inspiration.
From slicked back hair and leather jackets, to mohawks and piercings, rock has initially been a means of rebellion against social norms and fashions. Eventually, this rebellion eats itself (see the proliferation of "emo" fashion), but the initial movement is always about embracing the outcasts in some form or fashion.
And now here comes Hinder, with this kind of macho "This is real rock" attitude, while the whole point of the art form is to escape from that sort of thinking.
Plus they suck balls.
