The Hives' debut album Barely Legal turns 25 this year, and to celebrate we have an exclusive, limited-to-300, coke-bottle-clear vinyl variant coming! The Swedish band changed gears from their sophomore album on, but Barely Legal is pure punk rock. That's a mock-up of the variant above. Pre-order it here. Here's what Andrew said about it in our list of great punk and pop punk albums from 1997:
When The Hives inked a major label deal and hit it big in America, they were grouped with the garage rock revival that The Strokes were leading, but The Hives were regulars of the punk scene before The Strokes even formed. They were on Epitaph's Swedish sister label Burning Heart alongside Millencollin, Refused, No Fun At All, and other punk bands, and on their 1997 debut album Barely Legal, they sounded like a legit punk band. The classic garage rock influence was there for sure, but The Hives hadn't yet become the retro-rock musical theater act that made them stars (an act I like a lot and am not dissing by any means). The Hives from 2000's Veni Vidi Vicious onwards had a meticulously crafted sound and image, deceptively simple on the surface but executed with extreme attention to detail and a big wink. The Hives of Barely Legal were more down to earth than that -- they come off more like an unpretentious New Bomb Turks-ian garage punk band than like the retromania act you saw on MTV. And though the latter is the main reason we're still talking about The Hives today, Barely Legal is nothing to scoff at. It's ripper after ripper and it's a killer record in its own right, especially if you're looking at The Hives from a punk standpoint.
Pre-order our new variant and watch the video for "A.K.A. I-D-I-O-T" below.