The Hives "Veni Vidi Vicious" [2000]

Leave it to the Swedes to steal everything going on in contemporary music, even the crappy stuff. Coldly swiping the entire sound of American post-punkers New Bomb Turks -- and then ineptly needing five guys to recreate what that obscure power trio did -- The Hives attempt to come on like The Stooges on Ritalin instead of The Stooges on… uh, everything other drug in existence. Because Swedes are historically, patently incapable of musical originality, The Hives must be considered the Abba or Roxette of rock, pathetic as that may seem. Yet they do deserve such treatment; anyone who tries to turn themselves into a wind-up version of punk while the Ramones were actually dropping dead around the time "Veni Vidi Vicious" came out deserves to be slagged mercilessly. Certainly there is a place for punk-rock mockery ("prockery?" let me work on it), but when The Hives brazenly admit they're just in it for the money, that's enough to bring back the "tradition" of hocking loogies on the "talent." Hmm, maybe The Hives are bright enough to realize this possibility, which is responsible for them not having toured in awhile. Score one for things working themselves out.