I am a fan of any band who can sell out without completely losing what brought them to the brink of selling out in the first place. The whole notion of selling out, frankly, is completely underrated. Unfortunately, Hot Hot Heat hasn’t the first fucking clue why they gained a following with their first (the fantastic “Make Up The Breakdown”) and, to a somewhat lesser extent, second releases (the less inspired but often wonderful “Elevator”) and, having apparently lost complete track of what makes them a sometimes great band, their sellout attempt with their third album, “Happiness Ltd.,” is a near total failure. This album sucks. I’m stopping short of giving it one star because it’s not completely devoid of redeeming qualities, but I’m tempted to just because I’m so fucking pissed at them for doing this to me.
This is a band that spent their first two albums attempting to perfect a sound that I have literally not heard anywhere else in the indie rock universe. A nearly perfect combination of “totally fucking weird” and “totally fucking fun.” With their third release, they have dropped both “fucking weird” and “fucking fun” and replaced it with “fucking dull.”
Listen to “So So Cold.” “Waiting for Nothing.” What the fuck is this shit? This is the same band that came up with “Bandages” and “This Town” and, like, every track on their last two albums? What the fuck happened? Can they hear their singer? His vocals? Yeah, those don't work on this crappy emo nonsense. He sounds like a fucking lunatic. You guys used to write songs that were perfectly appropriate for a singer who sounds like a fucking lunatic. They were awesome. And you even used to pull off powerful, emotional material (which you're clearly striving for on the new release), like your masterful “Jingle Jangle,” without sounding like goddamn Fall Out Boy. Can...can you, like, go back to writing weird quirky shit and stop trying to remake yourself as some kind of hack homage to the Killers? Because the Killers are better at this shit than you are, even if their second album sucked.
Thank you.
"Happiness Ltd." on the iTunes Store:
2 comments:
Just want to point out that you had a similar reaction to Neon Bible, which you later liked at least a little. I haven't listened to any Hot Hot Heat but it sounds like the first album must be pretty good. By the way, I will not be leaving any other comments, at least until somebody else does (are you advertising this shit?). I feel like that weird guy who is scaring everyone away from the party. I'm gonna go watch Sunshine now.
This is very true, although I've had Happiness Ltd. for about 7 months now so I think I'm past the point of no return. I just wanted to write a negative review of something and picked the most recent album I'd been angry with.
Not advertising yet... want to get things a bit more settled.
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