By Adam Pugh
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Thursday November 14, 2002
Make Up The Breakdown
Combining pithy lyrics with a sense of humor makes the Hot Hot Heat a band that is defined by a quirky musical sense that gives us a fun way to listen to music. Make Up The Breakdown is a progressive and fun record that lets the listener dance to fun, stripped down keyboard rock that is unpretentious.
It is this unpretentiousness that makes this band so great. It is easy to picture them getting up on stage and just having fun with their music, not caring about how people perceive them. No glitz, no glamour, just some upbeat musical madness to make people smile and shake their heads and hips to.
Besides the clearly up-tempo and solid music, the lyrics are awesome, and sometimes almost an outright slam at people caught up in the glitz of being famous.
"Says she's got it all/Says she's got it all/says she's got it/ I don't want to be the one to tell her that she don't," Steve Bays sings on "Naked In the City Again."
Compare these guys to no one. If you do, it may ruin the fun. Everyone has influences, but some people are outright copying other artists. The Heat is definitely not one of those bands.
By not being the rip-off brand of "serious" rock, these guys will surely win a place in many new listeners' hearts.
