"(I Hate) Everything About You" by Three Days Grace from Three Days Grace

"Only when I stop to think about it… I hate everything about you; why do I love you?

Like several songs by the Canadian band Three Days Grace, this one can make you think, That's so stup— Well… Huh. At first glance, the yelling that "I hate everything about you" but love you anyway seems really silly.

But on second thought and consideration of the song, several people I know and I find it "interesting." You'll hate things about anyone, more so in the people you love, since you know them all the better and therefore know their flaws. In this case, each party hates "everything" about the other—which really isn't that inconceivable. Negatives are easier to remember than positives.

The lyrics make it pretty obvious that the couple was involved in a sexual relationship outside of marriage without getting crass. ("Every roommate kept awake by every sigh and scream we make.") And the fights between these two evidently got violent, so if these things bother you, it's not a good song for you.

The alternative metal of this song also has a post-grunge influence, so if you don't like the musically "rough" minor key, stay away. It's one of those songs that you can recognize immediately, and Adam Gontier's vocals don't hurt it.

As of this writing, Three Days Grace allowed people to listen to this song on their MySpace page.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 8/10

"If Everyone Cared" by Nickelback from All the Right Reasons

"If everyone shared and swallowed their pride then we'd see the day when nobody died" sums up this song's message and pinpoints a Christian's hesitation with it. "If Everyone Cared" is the sixth single Nickelback released from its 2005 album All the Right Reasons in the U.S. and the fourth worldwide (with a few exceptions).

In "If Everyone Cared" the Canadian band declares that, if everyone cared enough to band together to help others, they would eliminate world problems, and the music video accents that with the tales it includes of people caring enough to work for betterment, improving others' lives. Apparently funds from the sale of this single go to certain charities like Amnesty International.

My hesitation comes from the assumption that everyone banding together would eliminate world hunger and such. I'd guess that the Nickelback members would claim that man (in the human sense) is basically good. In my worldview of people being innately selfish and sinful and unable to care for others apart from the grace of God, this philosophy doesn't fly so well. Though it could probably be argued that my issue's a matter of thinking the band's humanistic dream impossible.

The song's a standard short pop but softer rock with a nice beginning that doesn't go much of anywhere, musicwise. It sounds… normal. Nothing special, besides the older voice of Chad Kroeger that reminds me of Newsong. (I think of it as "rough"; I'm not sure what the technical term is, musically.)

Despite the short length of "If Everyone Cared", it's extremely repetitive. I grant them kudos for an admirable idea, but I really won't be looking for this song to listen to on my own; not my preferred sound.

The song's currently offered on the band's MySpace page if you want to listen.

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Lyrics: 3/5
Music: 3/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 7/10

"Pain" by Three Days Grace from One-X

"Pain, without love. Pain, I can't get enough. Pain—I like it rough, 'cause I'd rather feel pain than nothing at all."

From that opening, the post-grunge song has a bit of a rough sound as fits the raw emotions it's speaking of. Three Days Grace says it's speaking of the fact that they'd rather be in pain than emotionally numb, but it's not uncommon for people to interpret it with a… kinky… twist.

Add "anger and agony are better than misery" to "trust me, I've got a plan; when the lights go off you will understand," and you end up with lyrics that suggest the kinky interpretation might have more merit than the band admits. When you start looking through the song with that lens, the song overall makes more sense. (I wanted to phrase that another way, but it accidentally produced a pun I don't want to play with.)

Adam Gontier does seem to have a voice that knows how to sing, at least, and he uses it well in the song. He sings roughly to match the song's tone.

Overall, I think it's… better than okay, but you have to get past the lyrics.

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Lyrics: 3/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 7/10

"Never Too Late" by Three Days Grace from One-X

"Even if I say, 'It'll be all right;' I still hear you say you want to end your life."

Unlike most songs speaking of suicide, this is a friend talking to the suicidal individual. The narrator's encouraging his suicidal friend to continue living. "This world will never be what I expected, and if I don't belong" "maybe we'll turn it all around 'cause it's not too late. It's never too late" to seek to pull yourself out of the depression and hopelessness.

Lead singer Adam Gontier has a voice well-suited for the post-grunge-influence rock Three Days Grace produces, but it also fits well in this song that could be qualified as a guitar-based rock ballad. Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, drums, and cymbals meld in a way that's pleasing to the ears if you like rock. None of it's discordant, and it all flows together in such a way that I can't imagine the song fitting to anything else.

The music video involves a girl playing with her parents, intercut with the girl as a young woman fighting nurses who are keeping her from killing herself. The video symbolically portrays the child's molestation without the parents' knowledge that led to her current institutionalization, and as "Never Too Late" comes to its ending, she overcomes her past.

Overall, it's a refreshing (albeit darkly-toned) song that considers life worth living even if it looks dark. "Never Too Late" encourages both the sucidal individual and his friend that life isn't over just because it seems hopeless.

As a Christian, I view it as incomplete since it fails to address that God is man's hope. Parents may not want their younger children to listen to the song, either, from the psychological elements it addresses. Nonetheless, it's a remarkably well put-together song considering the junk that tends to end up on the radio a lot, these days.

As of this writing, the song was displayed on the MySpace page of Three Days Grace.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 5/5
Vocal(s): 4/5
Overall: 8/10

"Animal I Have Become" by Three Days Grace from One-X

When I get in my mother's car, chances are some rock station will be playing. That I often avoid those stations on my own is well-established in my family. "Animal I Have Become," with its standard yelling and hard rock beat, would generally a prime example of 'songs Carradee would avoid.' The look on my mother's and my brother's faces one day when they realized that was me singing along with this song was priceless. (That it took them a near minute to realize who was singing was another matter.)

I first heard this song—or, at least, I was first aware of having heard this song—shortly after I saw Underworld last year. (The first one.) I highly enjoyed the literal fantasy element of this song of a newly-bitten werewolf or vampire struggling to cope with the beast now within. (The music video leans towards vampire, but I tend to think of the narrator as a werewolf.) Literalist me has great difficulty with symbolism, but the song was written as the singer admitting his darker side comes out in his music and coming to terms with it.

The lyrics themselves work very well, capturing the fear, frustration, pleading, confusion, and anger all wrapped into either the literal fantasy or the symbolic realistic meaning. They are pretty short and direct, but at least the songwriter ended when he had a tightly-woven song rather than trying to needlessly stretch it out. "Animal I Have Become" does repeat itself, but that repetition links the many conflicting emotions of the piece.

Now, I think he has a good voice, but much of the song yells, making it hard to tell. "Somebody get me through this nightmare—I can't control myself!" he yells in frustration and fear. The song addresses that "this animal" is who he now is; no one can change that, but he still pleads for someone to "help me tame this animal I have become!"

The word hell is used, though not as an expletive. ("I can't excape this hell.") It's overall a dark tone, with a sound I can only describe as "rough," though not in a musically unskilled kind of way. It suits the subject matter.

"Animal I Have Become" has helped me adapt to hard rock and the post-grunge influence, so I can tolerate them. I liked the song enough that I forced myself to sit through listening to it.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 4/5
Vocal(s): 3/5
Overall: 7/10

"She Didn't Have Time" by Terri Clark from Life Goes On

I know people who hate country for little reason more than its tendancy to whine over lost boyfriends (and inability to speak properly, but that's another issue). "She Didn't Have Time" starts with the usual "she watched him go" and builds from that until there's a cliché love that was "destiny."

Okay, that sounds worse than it is--the woman spoken of does work hard, lacking time to be misery-ridden, but also lacking time to relax as Life Goes On. The song builds up her frustration and loss through her finding a guy who's handsome and helpful. When he asks her, "Do you have kids?" the music encourages the listener to hold his (or her) breath in the expected rebuffal that occurs from that.

Instead, listeners are gratified to hear the man was asking because he "love[s] kids." He "saw the car seat"—does she have your eyes?" The refrain "she didn't have time" changes into her lacking the time to fear getting close to another man who might leave her again.

Admittedly, people who haven't been in (or been the kid in) this type of situation probably won't like the song at all. I imagine my mother must have felt the loneliness implicit in this song.

Now, the music and vocals are standard country, though the twang isn't nearly as much as it could've been. Canadian Terri Clark at least spares her hearers that torment. (And yes, I'm saying that tongue-in-cheek.) The lyrics are clean on this song, though from the title of another track on this CD, I imagine not all of Terri Clark's songs are the same.

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Lyrics: 4/5
Music: 3/5
Vocal(s): 3/5
Overall: 6/10