Veni Vidi Vicious

by

The Hives

Edit

to suggest that the hives are a throwback to the proto-punk of detroit is to totally underestimate the degree and reach of their piracy. it's like they've sucked up every crumb of trashy rock since louie louie and regurgitated it on veni vidi vicious, and they stop just shy of quoting their influences from the sonics to blur (yeah, i said blur). graying aficionados of american punk will find themselves in familiar terrain, but then again, grindcore fans who were probably in diapers when the dolls started purveying their junk-style take on glam will recognize the energy (if not the soul). and somewhere in between, the hives were careful to pick at the carcasses of the new york noise bands of the 80's. so if somebody were to say to me that there's not one original thought on this cd, i'd be hard-pressed to find a rebuttal (except to weakly point out that there's not really an original thought on any cd coming out these days).

that doesn't mean i'm not going to go out on a limb and say the hives deserve a place in the pantheon of great RAWK (oy!) based on this album alone though. there's nothing wrong with building on the unique ideas of your forebears, but it does increase the pressure to deliver. imho, they totally deliver. they're tight and cacophonous and obnoxious - everything you'd wanna hear about a rock band. they've hung their talents on memorable, catchy tunes and even the lyrics are kind of smart - in a clipped, snotty punk-... sort of way. there's not a dud in the bunch, including the charming crooner find another girl. highlights are die, all right!, hate to say i told you so, but most of all, main offender. all of 'em brilliant, cathartic, and fun - the sort of butchy summer keg-tunes i like to crank up in my car with the windows all open and howl along to.

if you like trashy rock like this, check out royal trux's accelerator too.

I don't know why this album in particular has instigated this tirade from me but for some reason all the bad reviews have really pissed me off. For whatever reason I'm in the habit of reading the lowest rated reviews of albums I like first. Usually I just laugh at the ignorant fools who say stuff like, "The Velvet Underground is the most over rated band in history," and you won't find a more vigorous Velvets defender than me. But the handful of lousy reviews for this album, which I don't even give 4 stars myself, really made me mad.

First of all, I think that in 2006 it's really idiotic to dismiss a band because they sound like another band. So the Hives are obviously derivative of the MC5, the Kinks, Da Stooges, etc. and those bands did it first and better. Of course they did... THEY'RE THE F**KING MC5! But you know what? The MC5 hasn't made any new music since 1971. So any band that worships them as much as I do is cool with me. As long as they don't rip off riffs directly I'm ok with "derivative". Because if you like that old-school crummy rock it's hard to come by and you should be dying for more. Besides in this day and age it's almost impossible to NOT be derivative of something (before you jump down my throat, I know there are exceptions: Flaming Lips, Sonic Youth, Tom Waits - off the top of my head). As long as it's done right, with the appropriate reverence/humor, it's perfectly acceptable to wear your influences on your sleeve.

Secondly, when people complain that a 30 minute rock album is a rip off because it's too short just tells me that those idiots have absolutely no understanding of rock-n-roll at all let alone the history of the music business. You see, in the glory days before Compact Discs destroyed music 30 - 40 minutes was the most music you could cram on an LP without losing fidelity. More than that and you had to either cram the grooves so close you lost sound or you had to move it on to a second LP which was prohibitively expensive. That's part of the reason some of those first 2 lp albums are real classics, i.e. The White Album, Exile on Maine Street, Blonde On Blonde. [Actually the White Album is a bad example because it was the first album on Apple Records but you get my point.] In order to convince the label to put out two LPs you really had to have something to say. Otherwise your album got cut to fit the medium, therefore you left the weaker songs off the record. The CD's 75 minute format allowed artists to become very poor self-editors. Whatever crap they recorded got slapped on the CD. Rarely is there a 75, or even 60 minute album that is good all the way through but, now, the music buying public, in true American-Consumer fashion, has come to demand quantity over quality. "If I'm going to spend $18 on a CD I better be getting 75 minutes of music even if 45 minutes of that is pabulum I'll never listen to." (For a few years a backlash to this has been building, hence the success of iTunes.)

Anyway, my long rambling point is that - More Is Rarely Better! The Hives' 30 Minute Veni Vidi Vicious is the perfect length. No filler. No tedious solos that need to be skipped over. The longest song clocks in at 3:22; no time to get bored here. Just 12 short kick-ass examples of garage rock in almost it's purest form. I say "almost" because, despite what some reviewers here say, this album is overproduced. Personally, I really cherish that recorded-in-my-parent's-basement kind of feel to my crappy rock records; this album is obviously meant to be a little bit more radio friendly. I can't fault them for that but it's just not my thing.

Bottom line is that this is a fun record and I think that a majority of the reviews have missed this point. If you understand that when I call some music "crappy" I don't necessarily mean it derogatorily or if you appreciate Lenny Kaye's Nuggets Collection or if you have a collection of cherished 45s you bought at local rock shows then I trust this album will make you smile. No, it's not as good as the MC5 or the Stooges or what ever high water marks you want set for Rock... But what is? If you can't get over that I can only suggest your life would be much happier if you get off that pretentious pole you've got lodged in your rectum.