Swagger with a swedish accent
The beginning riff is more of a snap than a sound. Like someone flipping a switch labeled “chaos” and seeing the amps catch fire. Hate to Say I Told You: So hit the airwaves in 2000, it did not come respectfully. It burst in, spit on your shoes, and yelled either get away or dance. The Hives had come here to explode, not to charm.
This song had already devoured across Europe like a rock ‘n’ roll epidemic by 2001, when it went worldwide. Taken from their second album, Veni Vidi Vicious, it was a two-minute-fifty-five second statement of all The Hives stood for: volume, swagger, speed, and style. With Howlin’ Pelle Almqvist growling like a televangelist on a sugar high and Nicholaus Arson’s guitar licks sharp enough to draw blood, the song sounds like it’s being performed on a cliff edge with a hurricane behind it.
But the track is narrow despite all its disorder. strict military. The Hives were auditory snipers, not beginners flailing at instruments. Every stop-start is exactly sharp; every chorus is like a slap in the face. It’s punk dressed in identical black-and-white suits and filtered via garage rock. Their style, a sort of mod-meets-mayhem uniformity, was as staged as their breakdowns. This was drama, but with worn-out speakers and perspiring venues serving as stages.
What caused Hate to Say I Told You Thus, its timing was more significant than its power. Overproduced nu-metal and drab post-grunge were flooding the millenarian turn. Walking into this was a Swedish five-piece whose name like a gang and whose music sounded like manifestos. They did not reestablish the wheel. They ignited it and rolled it down a hill. Rock abruptly felt amusing once more, cocky, unhinged, incredibly cool.
The track set off the so-called garage rock rebirth, but The Hives brought dedication while others coasted on attitude. This was not a scene; they thought they were the best band in the world. And for a brief, searing second, they were. People begin to believe it as well if you play as though your life depends on it.
