Go figure that we planned a heat-themed set on what started as a pretty mild morning in Music City. But it DID warm up. And it’s July in Tennessee, so enduring the heat for a while longer is a near certainty. When prompted, you lobbed lots of suggestions for songs and artists that have us 🥵, ranging genres and decades and tempos.
Stream the full July 8, 2021 #ThematicStatic show (listen!👇🏼), and other ideas for a really hot playlist to bump at your next pool party!
All The Hottest Bands
If you’re like “Hey, Siri, play me the sound of 2002,” this is what might come on full-blast. WNXP Listener Andy and Weekend Host Emily Young both know that Hot Hot Heat’s “Bandages” fits this theme just perfectly. Watch 👇🏼 the official music video and transport yourself.
Heatmiser was a Portland, Oregon band in the ’90s — a time long before recent record temps wrought havoc on Pacific Northwest residents, crops and even sea creatures. And these typically mild-summer states are not out of the woods just yet, reports CNN.
If you’re destined to get sweaty, you might as well dance yourself silly to Hot Chip’s persistent electro-pop hit “Boy from School.” (Listen! 👇🏼)
Eek, on NPR’s Weekend Edition I learned our cities are crumbling with the effects of climate change — pretty terrifying outcomes that pile on the human and animal suffering caused by a fast-warming planet. The New York Times released this neat interactive feature on the woes of Chicago being built on both a lake and a river. Gah. I love being where the action is, but maybe we should heed Ethan’s recommendation for Canned Heat and get to “Going Up the Country.”
Hotter, Still
Dawn requested The Cure’s “Hot Hot Hot!” from their 1987 record Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me — repetition is often key. Especially when it comes to lathering on that SPF!
Martha & The Vandellas masterfully delivered the songwriting tool of simile in their 1963 Motown single “Heat Wave.” Did you know front woman Martha Reeves first worked for the storied Detroit record label as an A&R assistant before laying down tracks with the ultimately chart-topping girl group? This century found Alabama native Reeves serving as council member in Motor City. (Public service = extra hot.) Watch👇🏼 a short interview, including a justification of the group’s name, and a performance of the tune.
Allie asked for Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” which makes the track — I think — the only repeat in #ThematicStatic history thus far. (Glass Animals was also a perfect fit for our Animal + Adjective = Band Name themed set in late May.)
The heat goes on — as for the narrator of an unstable society in Talking Heads’ “Born Under Punches” — and the heat keeps rising, too. NASA reports that “the planet’s average surface temperature has risen about 2.12 degrees Fahrenheit since the late 19th century, a change driven largely by increased carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere and other human activities…The years 2016 and 2020 are tied for the warmest on record.”
Let’s switch gears and get 2/3 of boygenius together to describe feelings surrounding adolescent lust, and/or the remnants of a burning vehicle, in Lucy Dacus’ “Hot and Heavy” and Julien Baker’s “Heatwave,” respectively.
Zach pinged us on Instagram about the new Reaux Marquez, “Block Hot,” from the LP No Roads, which we included as one of three #RecordoftheWeek releases last month. Listen👇🏼 to the track that features Jamiah and our very first Nashville #ArtistoftheMonth Namir Blade (warning: not edited for radio).
When I spoke with sisters Jess and Camilla Stavely-Taylor of British trio The Staves for #RecordoftheWeek in the wintertime, Jess said she’d been really digging on Caroline Polachek, whose 2019 single “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” has been covered by other WNXP favorites Squirrel Flower and Waxahatchee. Dig these lyrics:
I’m out at a party, they’re playin’ our song
Caroline Polachek – “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings”
I cry on the dance floor, it’s so embarrassing
Don’t send me photos, you’re makin’ it worse
‘Cause you’re so hot, it’s hurtin’ my feelings
All this blog talk of global warming and humidity that won’t quit deserves a cleansing close, a breath of fresh cool air. And who better than Patron Saint of Tennessee Dolly Parton to offer it up with 1978’s “Baby I’m Burning,” her “disco classic” requested by listener Abel? Please enjoy the perfect white pantsuit and uplifting stage presence of Dolly circa 2015 at the Ryman, where she added an Alicia Keys interlude to the track. (Watch!👇🏼)
Now go drink a tall glass of water, seek ventilated shelter when needed — or an alcove with A/C if you’re so fortunate — and pump up the jams wherever you may be by streaming 91.one WNXP!