The Hives have shared their rowdy new cover of Blue Swede’s ‘Hooked On A Feeling’.
READ MORE: The Hives live in London: precision-engineered for a good time
The Swedish five-piece rock band teamed up with Spotify for their Spotify Singles to release their rendition of Blue Swede’s 1974 hit track. Released on March 29 of that year, ‘Hooked on a Feeling’ made history by becoming the first single by a Swedish artist to take the top spot on Billboard’s US list.
The song has racked up over 660 million streams on Spotify to date, in part thanks to its feature in movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Reservoir Dogs. For their version of the song, The Hives swapped the song’s original slower tempo for something much louder and more boisterous.
Speaking about the cover in a press release, The Hives’ frontman Pelle Almqvist said: “I think there’s a synergy effect of Swedish music having made it abroad, and you feel like it’s possible. We can’t make it more perfect than the original is, so we went the other way instead: ruined it, but made it sound exciting.”
The Hives’ most recent release was their sixth album ‘The Death of Randy Fitzsimmons‘. In a four-star review of the LP, NME shared: “Having spent 11 years away from the studio, The Hives zapped straight back into the only mode they know: pure pandemonium. It’s about time new generations received this healthy dose of old school Hives, packed with the same intensity, goofiness – and of course, the matching black and white suits. It’s what Randy Fitzsimmons would have wanted.”
NME caught up with The Hives back in July last year, where they opened up about being cited as one of Arctic Monkeys’ main inspirations: “They told us that the first week or month that they started the band, they saw The Hives and The Strokes and that was the thing that really started it off for them.
“We toured with them in South America about 10 years ago and had a great time, so I’m really happy they wanted us back. It’s a really great tour to be on; it’s really fun. I think Arctic Monkeys are fucking amazing. They’re the only good really popular band – and that’s not easy to do.”
In a four-star review of their live show in London, NME shared: “But holy hell: what momentum to lose. If the Hives aimed for the Greatest Show on Earth and came up a little short, you can’t fault the ambition. This was probably the dumbest show in town. And surely the most fun, too.”
In other news, last month, The Hives were forced to cancel their Dublin show due to Storm Kathleen.
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