There is a new post every day – just as I told you so! It’s time for a Scuzz Sunday post!

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It’s hard to believe that another week has flown by and it’s time, yet again, for Scuzz Sundays – my weekly feature where I take you on a leisurely stroll down my adolescent punk phase and we revisit some of the popular tracks from the era of the Scuzz TV freeview rock music video channel together. I’m Jacob Braybrooke – writing about Swedish band The Hives’ garage-punk chart hit “Hate To Say I Told You So” for this week’s entry. The track reached #23 on the UK Singles Chart and it became well-loved from the likes of NME, who placed it at #84 on their list of the “150 Best Tracks Of The Past 15 Years” in 2011. Originally released as the lead single of the band’s second LP record, “Veni Vidi Vicious”, to little fanfare in 2010, the track saw a re-issue in 2012 in the US, to more critically lucrative and commercially successful results, leading to the track becoming the most well-known addition to The Hives’ discography. Let’s rediscover “Hate To Say I Told You So” with it’s official video below!

It’s been years, probably over a decade, since I’ve watched that! It takes me back to the era of American indie rock where The Strokes were pioneering their genre, a sound which The Hives seemed to take a lot of influence from during the recording process of “Hate To Say I Told You So” – a super-smooth track with a fast-paced opening, as a familiar guitar riff leads the way for a pounding drum rhythm and electronic synth work to beam it’s way around Per Almqvist’s energetic lead vocals: “Do what I want cause’ I can and if I don’t because I wanna be ignored by stiff and the bored”, a line possessive of teenage angst, bolstered by the recurrent vocal hook: “Because I’m gonna”, a straightforward rock-and-roll punk edge later brings a stylistic synth arrangement to the melodic closing verse: “Ask me once, I’ll answer twice cause what I know I’ll tell them, because I wanna”, and “Sound device and lots of ice, I’ll spell my name out loud because I wanna”, over a simple bass guitar riff and a minimalist keyboard chord. The sound is young and brash, with the band’s photography creating a visual artwork akin to punk bands of the 60’s, an obvious wink-and-nod to the rebellious music culture of the time. Cut down to just over three minutes in length, the track sounds like a passionate burst of 70’s rock-and-roll combined with a visual suavity inspired by The Sex Pistols and Ian Dury & The Blockheads, although it’s hit by a commercially-driven underpinning, as the track doesn’t experiment in it’s genre to a very alternative point and it has a short and packaged length, making it a conveniently good fit for a daytime radio station. Nevertheless, I think it’s an entertaining throwback to the styles which pioneered it’s own genre and it feels like a tribute to the likes of The Specials and The Ramones in a firmly tongue-in-cheek sense. If it came out tomorrow, it wouldn’t sound particularly out-of-place, as it rides a contemporary wave of youthful rock aesthetics. Overall, it’s a good spot of punk-pop that has an attitude and a style to it which makes it sound very modern, while it also provides light call backs to the 60’s punk movement and the 70’s rock-and-roll era. There’s a certain level of artistry which manages to hold up.

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Thank you for reading this post! I’ll be back tomorrow, as per usual, with an in-depth look at the brand new track from a very famous Brit-rock icon who once interrupted a staged performance of “Earth Song” by Michael Jackson, which famously took place at the Brit Awards in 1996! If you really liked what you just read, why not follow the blog to get notified when each new post is up and like the Facebook page here?: https://www.facebook.com/OneTrackAtATime