I got hip to this CD from a co-worker who fancies herself quite the unearther of the latest indie hipster shit, and I have to admit she's pretty good for a lot of it (I mean, thank goodness she gave me the sublime Vampire Weekend a couple months back). She copied this CD back for me in '01, and it's always been an enjoyable listen. The songs are brief, noisy , incomprehensible, nonsensical blasts, (maybe because we're talking about a group of Swedes not exactly translating to English very well) but in the right mood it can be just what you might be craving. Plus, who can resist a White Stripes-like gimmick of always dressing in only two colors, in this case black and white?
Natty, yes?
I don't think The Hives ever had any bit of pretension about them; it really and truly seemed to be all for fun, and therefore pretty charming and hard to knock.
This song in particular is one of my favorites on the CD. I checked on the lyrics, but again, that's not really the point here. Something about money, CEO's, and a sarcastic view of how money may or may not make you happy. As you can hear in the video (linked below), they have a strong, dirty guitar sound that they mix way up front, overwhelming almost any other part of the band, most notably and especially the vocals. This song functions as most on the album do, with a riff and a simple two or three chord progression. There's a frenzied chorus, with the "Die!" and "Alright!" from the song title shouted without accompaniment at the end of the verse, which is pretty cool. My favorite part, though, is that very final chord after the song finishes. It's a dissonant, strange sound, but all the same pretty classic and a nice callback to the genre they've chosen to emulate.
I'm not a huge fan of the video, which I honestly hadn't seen until tonight, as I think this band doesn't lend themselves to concepts as much as live energy, but they get a good fake performance in there one the chorus hits.
No embedding allowed, so click heuh
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