Tell Me What You Want: Layers of Escapism in Nickelback's "Rockstar"

Every time I turn on the radio these days, I hope to hear Nickelback's hit song "Rockstar," and if my commute is longer than twenty minutes, I am seldom disappointed. The rhythm and the notion of escaping to a fantasy world do it for me, and the song just feels good musically. At the risk of over-analyzing a good thing, I wanted to examine the song with a little more depth than comes when I unabashedly belt out the song from behind the wheel as the radio plays it. Early in "Rockstar," lines that resonate for me and, I suspect, many others, pop out: "This life hasn't turned out/ quite the way I want it to be." Some opportunities do not materialize, others are missed, and even the most successful among us will sometimes wonder what might have been. This song hits hard on the perpetual what if, detailing the dream life of a wealthy, successful rock star, with cameos from famous athletes and, yes, rock stars in the video. Less obvious, though, is the undercurrent of dissatisfaction with even this fantasy lifestyle, an ache strong enough to have those living the life looking for escapes of their own. In the end, we may all want to be rock stars, but what we all really want is the ever-elusive Something Else.

Tell Me What You Want

The song sets up a description of those who have little and want more. A rock star life, to someone who is "never gonna win," carries immense appeal. The money, the house, the sex, and the fame seem ideal for those who can claim none of them. The fast pace of that lifestyle, to someone entrenched in everyman routines, seems exciting. In short, the adrenaline-driven life of the fabulously wealthy and famous can't help but appeal to most of us who are neither wealthy nor famous. For those with staid or non-existent sex lives, the appeal of a centerfold who "loves to blow my money for me" is, well, fairly obvious.

So What You Need?