EXCUSE ME? EVERYONE relies on marketing and the industry. I've worked at record labels. Nelly Furtado has the kind of fanbase that the music industry DROOLS just thinking about. One that crosses all sorts of demographics but hits a KEY "underrepresented" one, I.E. LATINOS. All of this, which yes is VERY manufactured by her labels' amazingly saavy PRESS division as well as the AUDIENCE RESEARCH COMPANIES that provide the data that makes it possible to strategize and all of this together has propelled her to the top of the charts.
The lie they always sell rock fans is that "these were a few guys kicking around in grandma's basement till they made it big" because that speaks to rock's "authenticity" shtick. YOU ARE GULLIBLE. Sorry. That's me being straighforward. Nickelback has relied in the industry as well, and what you're saying is just plain uninformed.
Sorry, w/regards to this matter I am way way over-informed. I wouldn't have opened my mouth in the first place if I wasn't absolutley sure of what I was saying, and in fact that's the only reason I did say anything - because I read something I knew to be patently false. I don't care about Nickelback at all, but the fact of the matter is that I just spent 6 long months living with a someone who worked at Sony-BMG and Coalition managing Sum 41, Our Lady Peace and a bunch of other bands. He is on a first name basis with pretty much every guy in the alt-rock industry and I have had to endure literally hundreds of hours of insider conversation about every aspect of every lame band and record label in Canada. I know way more about Nickelback's career than I ever wanted to know.
I don't like rock music, and I have zero interest in propping up some sort of fake story about this shitty band, but the truth is that there are no elaborate focus groups behind them, and no made-up story - this I know for a fact. I can tell you with absolute certainty that they are as plain and boring as their music, and that their story checks out. Their initial independent, self-managed and self-financed Canadian career was supported by CANCON legislation, VideoFACT and touring every rotten town in the country, not by any record company or payola whatsoever. Everyone in the Canadian record industry knows this, as do many regular Canadians. There's no such thing as payola for Canadian bands, and Canadian music videos are financed by the government (aka rapper welfare). The media are legally required to play Canadian music, and struggle to fill the quota - thus popularizing a lot of crappy independant bands like Nickelback without ANY record industry support. Even Nelly furtado relied on the same government system to get her acoustic trip-hop career started. The ones that do well in the government-rigged domestic market get signed and exported to the states. Some make it (Nickelback, K-os), but most get sent back to Canada with their tail between their legs (The Tragically Hip) - that's the Canadian system. It's essentially a government-sponsored record industry farm-league.
As far as how Nickelback have been managed/marketed outside the country after signing to an American label - I dont know firsthand. I can tell you that no aspect of their music or image has changed since they first appeared in the Canadian media as an independent group with absolutely no record label support, so I find your allegations that their music, image and story are manufactured to be pretty absurd. You may have worked in the record industry somewhere in the world, but you obviously have no clue how the Canadian record industry works. 50,000 units to go gold in Canada, 100,000 for platinum.. budgets are equally tiny. There is simply NO MONEY to speculatively develop domestic Canadian rock acts in the way that American pop stars are developed and marketed. It's a completely different ballgame here than in any other music industry, and that's what makes your speculations (which might be comletely reasonable based on how the
American record industry works) so blantantly absurd in the specific case of Nickelback and the Canadian record industry. I'm giving you the straight facts, just ask ANYONE who has anything to do with the Canadian record industry.