Nickelback's New Video Is New Levels Of Bad

"She Keeps Me Up", Nickelback's latest single, is challenging everything I thought I knew about the greatness of Canada. Poutine. Maple syrup. Ryan Gosling. Canada has given us so very much. It's such a lovely, pleasant country (The great Robin Williams once described our neighbor to the north as being "a really nice apartment over a meth lab," and who are we to argue with him?), so it sort of stands to reason that, at least every now and then, something terrible has to come from within its borders just to maintain cosmic balance.

Enter Nickelback.

The band has long been a cultural punchline (despite the fact that they're second only to the Beatles in terms of commercial success so... who's laughing? I mean, it's still us, but maybe we should go about it a little more ruefully). From a "People You Need To Unfriend Immediately" app from Buzzfeed a few years ago to videos highlighting their contrived mediocrity, it's gotten to the point that I had begun to wonder if they are actually as awful as we joke about.

But then this video happened.

Ladies and gentlemen, just as the Apostle Thomas doubted the resurrection of Jesus and was chastened as the Lord bid him touch the wound inflicted upon him by the spear of a Roman soldier, I have looked into the existential abyss of my skepticism and am now a believer. This song sucked. Truly and tremendously, sucked. The feeling of vicarious discomfort and embarrassment (or fremdschämen) I felt the first time I watched the music video did not dissipate after I had to go through it about three times to get all my screenshots. I did this for you, dear readers. I suffered through Nickelback so you don't have to. So that sort of makes me both the Nickelback Doubting Thomas and Nickelback Jesus.

Let's just start with some of my favorite lyrics...

She's got me nervous/ Talkin' a hundred miles an hour/ She's more than worth it/ I swear she smells just like a flower

I'd fall to pieces if I went anywhere without her

I love when she says "what's wrong with right here on the counter?"

Funky little monkey, she's a twisted tricksterEverybody wants to be the sister's misterCoca-Cola rollercoaster

The video, guys, is just as terrible as the song itself. It opens with two lovely young ladies looking for a party...

Mistake #1: The only video I know of to successfully open with two chicks talking is "Baby Got Back". Oh my God, Becky, this isn't going to be good.

When they find the party, this dude looks sneakily around to make sure they're alone. Of course they're alone, dude...

...because they're going to a Nickelback show. Which is this weird disco (because apparently Nickelback does disco now? Whatever, I'm beyond the point of being able to ask questions right now.)

The rest of the video can be broken down into a few major categories.

You've got "dolled up very attractive women sexily partying"...

...This "bartender pretending to be Tom Cruise in Cocktail"...

And then there's Chad Kroeger wagging his finger. I counted: He does this no less than five times over the course of the video. Frankly, it's weird that he did it one time, because who the hell does the finger wag as a signature move anymore?

This woman singing to Chad and pointing...

...And Becky II and her friend from the beginning, entranced by this weird disco wonderland.

The video is 4:42 seconds long. It seriously never, ever ends and it feels like every verse repeats. One minute fifty seconds in, the bartender appears to want to set the whole thing on fire.

You and me both, man.

Here it is, in all its confusing majesty:

Images: Getty Images; Vimeo