THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,925) The Hounds — “The Office Girl”
This ain’t nothin’ like a hound dog. It’s a dreamy Swedish dream about an office girl, “an attractive psych-pop tune, complete with wah-wah guitar, attractive four-part harmonies and… Accordion? . . . Nonetheless perhaps the best song the Hounds ever recorded.” (Virre Friberg, https://www.45cat.com/record/c207se) Petter writes:
[S]uper good. . . one of the best uses of wah-wah pedals ever, great bass line, great use of the organ, vocals like the Four Seasons [see #1,454]. And everything goes together perfectly. It’s “only” a pop song but it is absolute top class. Better than 80% of what the Beatles [see #422, 1087, 1,256] ever released.
Well, Petter, you had me until that last sentence!
The liner notes to the Electric Sound Show comp tell us that:
[They] scored numerous major hits in [Sweden] and Canada courtesy of two wisely-chosen cover versions, “Sealed with a Kiss” and “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”. Jan Ahlen, Lars Wallander, Jan Bathe, Jan Onnerud and Hendrik Salander had already enjoyed their first hit with “Exodus” in 1966 and went on to wave farewell to stardom hitting the charts in April 1968 with “The Gipsy Cried”. The Hounds disbanded in the same year and went their separate ways.
liner notes to the CD comp Electric Sound Show: An Assortment of Antiquities for the Psychedelic Connoisseur
Lennart Wrigholm writes (courtesy of Google Translate):
The Hollies [see #461] were . . . a . . . source of inspiration for Swedish pop groups. However, it was required that these had extremely talented members at the time because The Hollies could, with their four-part singing, sweep the field with most of their competitors. In 1965, the album Hollies was released and on [it] was the group’s version of the folk song “Very Last Day”. In Swedish pop circles, English LP records were grateful objects for finding songs to make cover versions of and “Very Last Day” in particular appealed to many. Among others, the Stockholm group The Hounds made it as a[n A-side]. However, this prompted The Hollies’ Swedish record company to break out the song as a Swedish single in the summer of 1966 and the Tio i Topp* jury fell head over heels. It was number one for The Hollies for almost the entire summer. But The Hounds weren’t sorry about it and God knows that the group had singing skills that were enough for an entire church choir. Instead, they recorded the theme song for the film “Exodus” and thus produced one of the best singles made during the entire Swedish pop era. For once, even the Tio i Topp jury could appreciate quality because this was the group’s breakthrough. During the years 1966-68, The Hounds had six songs on the Swedish Top Ten list. Of these, the group’s cover of the American The Tokens’ [see #66, 923, 1,046] “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” was the most successful. During this period, the group also made two LPs. Their hallmark became advanced vocals and although the eternal search for hit songs forced the group to mostly do covers for their singles, they developed their own composition [such as “Office Girl”, written by rhythm guitarist Hendrik Salander].
* Wikipedia informs (courtesty of Google Translate):
Tio i topp was Sveriges Radio’s first music chart, and was broadcast between 1961 and 1974. The program premiered on 14 October 1961 . . . . The songs on Tio i topp were often guaranteed a place on the Swedish sales chart, Kvällstoppen.
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