ELEVATOR | 
| Artist: Hot Hot Heat
Label: Record Collecti
List Price: $20.98
Buy New: $18.88
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Rating:  87 reviews
Sales Rank: 561693
Media: LP Record
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 12.4 x 11.8 x 0.2
UPC: 093624898818
EAN: 0093624898818
ASIN: B0007XT7U4
Publication Date: 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Introduction | | • | Running Out of Time | | • | Goodnight Goodnight | | • | Ladies and Gentleman | | • | You Owe Me an IOU | | • | No Jokes - Fact | | • | Jingle Jangle | | • | Pickin' It Up | | • | Island of the Honest Man | | • | Middle of Nowhere | | • | Dirty Mouth | | • | Soldier in a Box | | • | Shame on You | | • | Elevator |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Hot Hot Heat hail from Victoria, B.C., a town best known for imitating the queen's England in the service of tourism. But never fear: the high teas and manicured gardens are all well and good, this band knows that bad manners are what rock is all about. Case in point, the song "Goodnight Goodnight," in which a former girlfriend learns "you're embarrassing me, you're embarrassing you...this isn't goodnight, this is goodbye." There's nothing quite so much fun as a good dis song, and the Heat keeps the fun going on their newest album, Elevator. Virtually every track on the CD is short and sweet with plenty of energetic, poppy goodness. Standouts include "Ladies and Gentleman" (another semiburn: "everybody's got the same story--we never wanted him here, he showed up anyway."), "Middle of Nowhere," "Soldier in a Box"--well, I'll stop before I list them all. --Leah Weathersby
Album Description
Hot Hot Heat has scorched the college charts and warmed the hearts of critics with its most recent pair of indie albums. Now Canada's top Modern Rock outfit makes its major-label debut with Elevator, produced by Dave Sardy. With Elevator, Hot Hot Heat is on its way to the top with an album that, keeping with superstition, purposefully has no 13th track.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 82 more reviews...
 Seriously. It's THAT good! May 8, 2005
M J Heilbron Jr. (Long Beach, CA United States)
52 out of 57 found this review helpful
I must respectfully disagree with the majority of the reviewers here.
I totally loved this album, and I think it blows the doors off their last one.
If The Killers make you remember how great 80's music could be, then Hot Hot Heat here shows you how great and totally FUN it could be as well.
I really like The Killers "Hot Fuss" (and their singles are stupendous, no argument here) but I believe "Elevator" is it's equivalent. This is a WAY better album than, say, The Bravery.
There are several outstanding songs...full-on, well-crafted songs with irresistible melodies, terrific guitars and crashing drums, and lyrics you "get" by the end of the tune. The other songs are still worth a listen or two; this is one of the rare recent albums where I don't feel the need, or have the urge, to hit 'skip' every now and then.
When was the last time you heard "hooks" as good as these? Or more than one in a song? There are hooks galore here, from beginning to end.
"Running Out of Time" and "Goodnight Goodnight" are the knockout one-two punch opening songs, and the consensus appears to be that the latter is a great song. Even by some of those who aren't as impressed with the rest of the record.
But even songs like "Ladies and Gentleman" and "You Owe Me An IOU" have catchy parts, even if they don't quite reach the heights of those first two gems.
Later on, there's a song called "Pickin' It Up" which is a glorious punky-pop rock tune, like a fast Clash song with a boozy Robert Smith vocal.
And the single "Middle of Nowhere" stands head and shoulders above some of the pap currently heard on "modern rock" radio (although overall, modern rock radio IS in a better state of health compared to when Limp Bizkit appeared with regularity on their playlists).
The finale, "Elevator" SOUNDS like a great "last-song-of-the-record" song.
Nowadays, artists throw their worst tunes at the end as filler, and album sequencing feels random. In the 'old days', it was important to have certain songs end one side, or be the first on "side B". Not this album.
I love this album, and honestly, I am totally surprised that I do. I didn't expect this at all.
Seriously. It's THAT good!
love love October 29, 2005
Russell Foster (usa)
13 out of 19 found this review helpful
I freakin love this album. Its nice fun music. Im glad the 80s are back.
 Goodnight, goodnight May 1, 2005
E. A Solinas (MD USA)
10 out of 27 found this review helpful
Hot Hot Heat broke out with "Make Up The Breakdown," a frenetic dancepop album with some new wave influence. Soon the hype machine went into overdrive, and the band found itself facing the most dreaded thing a successful band can encounter: The hype disappointment.
Unfortunately, Hot Hot Heat don't dispel that disappointment in "Elevator." It's not a great album, although it has some good moments. Apparently they tried to avoid ennui by changing their sound. But many of the best things about their previous work are gone -- the upbeat dancepop number "Running Out of Time" is basically an ordinary guitar-rocker.
What follows is a stream of rather ordinary guitar-based pop songs, with moderate hooks and some interesting beats. Things actually start to pick up about two-thirds of the way through, with some more electronic-tinged songs like "Pickin' It Up." Unfortunately, it isn't enough to save "Elevator" from mediocrity.
It's hard not to feel a bit sorry for Hot Hot Heat -- living up to the hype is bad enough, but then there's figuring out where to go next. The problem with "Elevator" is not that it's a guitar pop album, but that it's such an ordinary, unexceptional one. What's worst of all, it could have been a lot more fun.
There are some good hooks and rhythms, but nothing to really dance to. The guitarwork and percussion are passable. Actually they're even good at times, as in the undulating riffs in "Soldier in a Box." And occasionally they throw in some synth or keyboard, but never quite enough. If they had washed it over the guitar rhythms, that might have solved many of their problems.
It wouldn't have solved the writing problem, though. The songwriting is very lame, usually focusing on one catchy phrase and repeating it a minimum of 1000 times. "It's true I've dabbled at times with confident lines/I was half of a man nearly half of the time..." goes one of the lines, as if unsure what the song is saying.
Hot Hot Heat hits the post-hit jinx, with an album that isn't original, isn't danceable, and has a good moment scattered here and there. Better luck next time.
A bit of a mess April 6, 2005
Jarrett B. Graver (Baltimore, MD)
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
Even the best songs on Hot Hot Heat's breakthrough album "Make Up the Breakdown" artfully treaded that fine line between incredibly catchy and diabolically irritating. Unfortunately, the first four actual songs (not counting the pointless "Introduction") on their latest release are nowhere near as sure-footed, they're pretty abysmal actually, with repetitive, sing-songy choruses that make you want to pour quick-dry cement into your ears.
Thankfully, things pick up somewhat after the useless instrumental break "No Jokes - Fact." Both "Jingle Jangle" and "Pickin' it Up" are as good if not better than anything on "Make up the Breakdown". Especially "Pickin' it Up." The song simply GALLOPS along, a wonderful post punk workout that's better than some band's entire catalogue. Tracks 9 and 10 are both solid as well, straying a bit from the yelp-and-grind HHH formula, and all the better for it. Back to mindless chanting for "Dirty Mouth," and the less said about the Strokes sound-a-like "Soldier in a Box," the better. The album manages to coast to a strong finish with the "Shame on You" and "Elevator", less frenetic almost moody tracks that hint at a burgeoning maturity. In short, they sound like actual songs, not the ADD posing as songcraft of tracks 2 thru 5. All in all, their's an EP's worth of strong material here.
A Step Backwards April 11, 2005
T.F.H. (McAlester, OK USA)
7 out of 15 found this review helpful
I've listened to this cd several times since I purchased it, wanting to give it a fair chance, but I'm just so disappointed.
Make Up the Breakdown was phenomenal.
Elevator is just bland. It seems so "polished" and it's lost everything that made MUTB such a great album. Elevator is very "bubblegummy" and seems to be geared towards 15-year-old girls. I guess if you're a 15 year-old-girl, you'll like it, but as an almost 30 year-old male, I was looking for something more rough around the edges. Elevator is too teen-pop for me.
No, I didn't want Hot Hot Heat to make the same album, but I didn't want them to go all soft and sell-out either.
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