What's a poor rock band to do when your last album sold 8 million copies at a time when nobody buys CDs anymore? You can hire a guy who produced AC/DC, Def Leppard and Shania Twain albums that sold even more. On Dark Horse, "Mutt" Lange lightens Nickelback's dreary post-grunge plod, applying guitar shimmer to prom ballads and detonating big beats under frat-party shouts and raplike vocal parts. Lyrics revel in dorkitude, hair-metal style: "No class/No taste/No shirt/'N shitfaced." The two liveliest songs celebrate getting wasted with the bros; the most melodramatic laments a friend's overdose. Lange keeps things rolling — and to his credit, Chad Kroeger gratifyingly comes off as more of a regular guy than a rock star.

“Oh Sherrie”

Steve Perry's girlfriend Sherrie Swafford was actually in the studio when Perry began writing this song--his lone Top Ten hit as a solo act--with two co-writers. The trio began at midnight one night with just "Oh, Sherrie!" and "hold on, hold on." Three hours later, they had a complete song. Swafford, however, had to wait until the next day to hear it. "Sherrie actually got tired and went to bed," Perry said. She also appeared in the video, but their relationship did not hold on for long.