Nickelback was a band I had heard of, but I'm not very into the modern music scene. My friend suggested this CD to me.

I ordered this CD with high hopes. When I got it and put it into my laptop, everything seemed normal. There was every song, different names, different lengths.

I listened to the first song, and all was well. I then moved on to the second song.

It was the exact same song? I knew I couldn't be mistaken. Surely every song would have its own unique attributes to differentiate from the others. I went on to the next song, and then the next...but every single one was the exact same.

I called my friend who had suggested the CD, but she said her CD was fine and that maybe something was wrong with mine. We got to talking about music videos and she told me her two favorites, I went and looked them up online.

IT WAS THE SAME SONG FOR BOTH VIDEOS.

I'm completely confused. Why are all the songs exactly the same?

I Think This Is The Best Nickleback CD So Far! Almost Every Song On The Album Is Awesome.I Think That About 9 Songs Really Stand Out On This Album.Deffinitely Go Out & Purchase This CD!

*Follow You Home

*Photograph

*Animals

*Savin' Me

*Far Away

*Next Contestant

*If Everyone Cared

*Someone That You're With

*Rockstar

"Corporate Rock" as others have called it, truly souless, recycled pop music designed for people who aren't aware of any musical outlet but clearchannel and MTV.

This is a hack job; a mundane, old mixture of every rock album released over the last decade. From the remarkably foul hick twang in the vocals, to the Creed and 7 mary 3 inspired kindergarten riffs, to the classless lyrics. You can only expect even more base material to be inspired by this junk.

Unfortunately, wether you buy it or not, it doesn't matter, you wont escape it's noxious sound for the rest of your mortal life.

Listening to this album, I constantly asked myself how anyone could possibly enjoy it. It seemed so shallow, predictable, and lifeless compared to anything else in my CD collection. But after some rumination, I've arrived at an explanation. Allow me, at the risk of sounding incredibly pretentious, to present the allegory of Plato's Cave. Suppose a group of people are raised from birth inside a darkened cave, chained to chairs facing a wall. Now, on this wall shadows of forms are projected. Now, given that these people are raised from birth inside the cave, these shadows and forms are all they know of the world; in their minds, they ARE the world. But suppose one of them is dragged to the surface, and sees for the first time what the world is really like, full of color and life. And if they went back down into the cave, they'd never be able to look at the pictures on the wall as anything but mere shadows.

So it is with music. For most people, their only experience with music comes in the form of sanitized, corporate radio-rock, typified by Nickelback. But once you listened to music beyond the mainstream; been "dragged out of the cave" so to speak, you never really look at the mainstream with such fondness as you did before.

What's sad about "All The Right Reasons" is that Nickelback, either through a conscious decision on their part or by pressure from their label, refused to expand, develop, or otherwise alter their sound at all. Rest assured, if you liked "Silver Side Up" or "The Long Road" you'll love "All The Right Reasons." But if you found those albums to be soulless, manufactured and repetitive, you'll be able to say the exact same thing about this album, too. Nickelback exemplify 100% safe, watered down, exceedingly simplistic and generic Hard Rock. This is the kind of music you can imagine Soccer Moms "rocking out" to. Listening through ATRR painfully reminded me why I had left mainstream "verse-chorus-verse" rock behind a long time ago.

"All the Right Reasons" hits all the right cliches for generic, formulaic rock. We've got the more aggressive track "Animals" so that the band can establish some kind of hard rock credibility. We've got the made-for-a-hit-single "Photograph," the supposedly angry swagger of "Next Contestant" and syrupy, cheesy dreck like "If Everybody Cared" or "Far Away." By far the worst track has to be "Rockstar," where Chad brags about how good it will be when he's a big rock star, which is a pitiful attempt at being sarcastic and ironic, but only comes across as being unintentionally honest, given that the band clearly have their sights set on money-making and nothing else.

"All the Right Reasons" is yet another bland offering from the masters of mass-produced, corporate rock. Nothing dangerous, nothing new. The sound of Nickelback is not of a band wishing to express themselves artisticly; it's the sound of a band who have found a very profitable trend and are going to milk it as long as they can. Spend your money elsewhere.

Like clockwork the last few years Nickelback comes back in early autumn 2 years after their last release to bring their 3rd straight 4.5 star album ( I think this is slightly better then "Silver Side Up" & "The Long Road" - both I'd also give 4.5 stars and "The State" I'd give 4). Not really hearing anything about this being released until about 2 weeks prior I didn't expect it to be as good as it is. Of the 11 songs on here, 1 is a classic, 2 are almost classics, 1 I skip, 1 is ok, and the other 5 are good or great songs. As always, Chad provides some good lyrics and a mixture of the type of songs on here. A great album for their fans to have.

#1 - 9.5 (nice harder upbeat track -- nice lyrics about a sort of stalker)

#2 - 9.5 (another harder upbeat song -- a nice lyrics on the trouble of leaving a relationship)

#3 - 9 (slower/deeper song about memories of the past)

#4 - 10 (CLASSIC -- upbeat song about a guy and a girl acting like wild animals)

#5 - 8

#6 - 5 (slow song -- really the only one on here I don't like)

#7 - 8.5

#8 - 8

#9 - 7

#10 - 8.5 (another upbeat song)

#11 - 9 (about wanting to be a rockstar and why)

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