So why is The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
Let me begin with a slightly embarrassing story.
It’s the year 2000 (sing that in your head à la the old Conan O’Brien bit if you like), and I’m living in Berkeley, California. I walked into Amoeba Records – as great a record store as exists, by the way – on Telegraph with the goal of finding the CD of a band that I had heard on the radio*.
* So much of the above paragraph seems out of a completely different era!
Keep in mind this is the pre-smartphone and pre-high speed internet days, because when I realized that I couldn’t remember the name of the band or song that I was looking for, I resorted to asking a store employee for help.
I must have stammered about this great punk rock band that I had heard on the radio, which finally prompted the nice Bay Area gal to ask me to sing the song for her.
And… I did. At least I tried to. This is the slightly embarrassing part. I mumble/sang something to the effect of because I wanna… which the gal and a few of her co-workers took in and nodded in an attempt to take me seriously.
But then surprisingly the gal said, “Oh, that’s The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious.”
And this interaction thus allowed my love affair with The Hives, now one of my favorite punk rock bands of all time, to begin in earnest.
…because I wanna of course refers to “Hate To Say I Told You So,” which I still think is great but would importantly note isn’t even in my Top 20 Hives songs these days.
In revisiting Veni Vidi Vicious, the band’s second full length album, I’m impressed and pleased by how rock solid consistent it is. And side note that The Hives are in that rare category of bands or artists for me where even my “least favorite” songs of theirs are actually at least sort of really good by any standard.
I still find so many songs on Veni Vidi Vicious to be genuinely thrilling, “Main Offender” and the ecstatically vibrant album opener, “The Hives-Declare Guerre Nucléaire,” being great examples.
“Supply and Demand” might be my favorite song on the album these days. The hooks are chef’s kiss great, and it has an all-timer punk rock chorus.
And when I listen to relative deep cuts like “Inspection Wise 1999,” I’m reminded of the visceral energy matched with precision execution that The Hives deliver.
With slower numbers like “Find Another Girl,” The Hives also get to show off their offbeat retro rock influences (by way of Sweden) that shine through on most of their output.
Some stats & info about The Hives – Veni Vidi Vicious
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Punk Rock, Garage Punk, Garage Punk Revival, Retro Rock, Swedish Bands
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – not ranked!
- All Music’s rating – 4.5 out of 5 stars
- When was Veni Vidi Vicious released? 2000
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #193 out of 1,000
The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from The Hives’ Veni Vidi Vicious that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
Got out way late in 2008. I’m gonna do it again in 2010.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.