For years, Nickelback have been touted as ‘the most hated band in history,’ but this year one man brought them back from the brink of extinction: the President of the United States, Donald Trump.
Last week, in an attempt to shift blame and divert attention away from that whole impeachment thing, Trump tweeted what can only be described as a ‘Nickelback meme.’
The tweet, captioned “LOOK AT THIS PHOTOGRAPH!” featured a snippet from Nickelback’s ‘Photograph’ music video, showing the photo replaced with a snap of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and someone labeled a “Ukraine oil exec.”
I mean, are we really that surprised? Trump’s manic Twitter behaviour has become part and parcel with his presidency.
However, Trump’s Nickelback tweet changed more than he bargained for.
According to Billboard, digital download sales of ‘Photograph’ on the day of Trump’s tweet were up a whopping 569% compared to the previous two days. The song also racked up 772,000 on-demand streams that day, which was up 38% from September 30th to October 1st.
It’s a big win for Nickelback considering their less-than-impressive reputation, however, they weren’t so happy with Trump’s support. According to the Guardian, the band issued a copyright complaint to have the video removed – a brush with crime that Trump is familiar with now.
Earlier this year one of the President’s campaign ads faced a takedown notice from Warner Bros for featuring the soundtrack to the Batman film The Dark Knight Rises.
So what does this tell us? There are a lot of Nickelback fans still out there. There’s a good chance they’re Trump supporters and as the old saying goes, all publicity is good publicity.