Nickelback Releases Cover of Devil Went Down to Georgia
The joys of cover songs. The unique opportunity for a singer or band to take a song and make it unique to their style. Chris Stapleton did it with Tennessee Whiskey and made millions. I personally don't feel there is anything wrong with it. If you are going to cover a song, especially a classic, you better be ready to nail it or fail miserably.
I'll start this conversation off with, yes I am a closet Nickelback fan. You can't sit there reading this and say you are not humming Rockstar and singing the quesadilla line. I was a big fan in my college years and have their albums tucked away on my Spotify account for safe-keeping. Rumors over the last week kept saying the band that got out-liked by a pickle on Facebook was coming out with a new album. I got somewhat excited, but expectations were very low. The band is celebrating the 15th anniversary of their third album to consecutively place number one on the charts, All the Right Reasons. The album being released was just a rumor.
What they did release, in my opinion, is a pile of crawfish shells in a dumpster during July. Nickelback released a cover of Charlie Daniels' Devil Went Down to Georgia. Lead singer, Chad Kroeger, talked in an interview about the song, saying how Daniels was a big inspiration for the way he writes and tells a story in a song. They wanted to cover the iconic song after the passing of the legend just a short time ago.
Swing and a miss for the Canadian rock band, if you ask me. The licks and sweeps for the Devil's solo are amazing, but they just seem overplayed. Daniels' fiddle playing was legendary. There are nods to his solos, but it just seems like the band tried a little to hard with the edgy feel of making it super hard rock. I've heard better covers done of this song on Bourbon Street during karaoke than this piece of musical monstrosity.