Don't count this as a genuine mea culpa on par with Kanye's notorious Taylor Swift diss-then-kiss. After ripping Canadian rockers Nickelback in the January issue of Rolling Stone -- a choice phrase is "watered-down, post-grunge crap" -- the Black Keys have now made the worst apology of all time.

In an on-camera interview with MTV Canada, Keys drummer Patrick Carney explains: "I didn't mean to single them out. It just came out… There's much worse bands than Nickelback, maybe. That was the worst apology."

Asked whether he was a music snob, Carney says "a little bit" before digging at the "Bottoms Up" act one more time. "I don't like bad music, but look, I've got a lot of friends and not one of them has a Nickelback record. I'm not a small minority."

Actually, Carney and company are a small minority -- according to himself. In the same interview that sparked the feud, Carney indirectly declared Nickelback as the "biggest band in the world," saying: "Rock 'n' roll is dying because people became OK with Nickelback being the biggest band in the world. So they became OK with the idea that the biggest rock band in the world is always going to be shit."

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