Ok Jody. Why can't we just admit that Nickelback is the greatest Rock artist of our generation? By your standards of appreciation for Daughtry (post-grunge, big lungs, showmanship, populism, and oodles of record sales - that last album has been in the top 40 for well over a year!!!) then clearly Chad Kroeger has usurped the throne of Kurt Kobain down to Jimi Hendrix.

So why not? They have better guitar solos too. Why not them? They've made it themselves - working their way through dingy snowed out Canadian bars. Why not them? Every 18 year old knows the words to "Rock Star" and "How you Remind Me." Why not them????

Because they suck suck suck suck suck, and you know it. Their music is unoriginal (yet somehow Daughtry manages to ape THEM), their lyrics are the worst kind of ham-handed laughable tripe, and the "rocking" is the most middle-of-the-road ho hum of studio slickery ever to be committed to tape. They're a clumsy, artless band - the post grunge (a genre byword that is synonymous with all this) equivalent of Turner Bachman Overdrive or Grand Funk Railroad - at least those guys had good competition.

And here you go, giving Daughtry props for being popular. Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Elvis and Bing Crosby were popular, but they were also cultural touchstones as celebrity icons who represented what was good in their generation. Daughtry just represents what IS. He is the sound of reality TV, an Icon of the Bush Decade Generation. You know as well as the rest of us who aren't willing to substitute populism for depth that we will look back on all that with pity at best.

So in the game of music-critic-chicken, you lose. The music itself is bad, and there's no way you can disagree with that without calling into question the right for you to call yourself a critic. Hey, its cool, we all flirt with the idea of populism-as-excellence, especially in art. Its a fun little thought-experiment. But do you really want to hear his stuff? Do you want to hang around with people who think he's the greatest artist ever? Do you want to perpetuate his business plan? I'm calling your bluff.

Thanks for writing all of that so I don't have to. Well said.

A million big-ups to jwschmidt!

I jumped into the fray to write pretty much exactly what you already have, so thanks. (And saying that Daughtry has 'bettered' E. Vedder not only displays incredibly poor taste, it shows a fundamental misunderstanding of both singers and their genres. Seriously...)