TOP 40 DEBUT: February 9, 1980
PEAK POSITION: #5 (April 5, 1980)
The knock on the Eighties version of Kool & The Gang always came down to style over substance. As far as the naysayers were concerned, one of the great party bands of the Seventies sold their souls for pop stardom in 1979, exchanging the greasy, boisterous party funk of “Open Sesame” or “Jungle Boogie” for a bloodless, commercialized version of the same. But that simplistic narrative ignores all the particular strengths a revamped Gang brought to the table. There’s a different skill set at work on Ladies’ Night versus, say, 1973’s Wild And Peaceful; those were vastly different albums, operating with different aesthetics to achieve different goals. “Too Hot” was more than a mere change in direction, or a cleaned-up take on a well-worn formula. “Too Hot” was the first single from Kool & The Gang “Mach II” that would never have existed within the band’s earlier incarnation.
As a previous entry detailed, New Jersey’s premiere R&B collective first blew up in the early Seventies, only to spend years in the commercial wilderness before “Ladies’ Night” (both the 1979 song and album) catapulted them back onto the charts in a big way. The two eras looked and sounded nothing alike; in many ways, they feel like the work of two completely different bands. Yet the personnel barely changed. Six of the original seven founding members remained on board throughout the rebuilding process: drummer George Brown, guitarist Claydes Smith, alto saxophonist Dennis Thomas, trumpeter Robert “Spike” Mickens, tenor saxophonist Ronald Bell, and bassist Robert “Kool” Bell. Two additional musicians, trombonist Clifford Adams and keyboard player Sir Earl Toon, joined in the late Seventies. By and large, Kool & The Gang in 1979 were the same outfit from a decade earlier—with one key exception.
Over the Gang’s five-decade lifespan, no individual hire altered the group dynamic more than adding James “J.T.” Taylor as dedicated lead singer. Taylor was a native of Laurens, South Carolina who’d spent two years attending Virginia’s Norfolk State University before relocated to New Jersey, where he taught school by day and sang in clubs at night. He was also friends with the manager of House Of Music, the West Orange studio where Kool & The Gang were rehearsing for their next album. Taylor’s “audition” for the Bell brothers consisted of a quick jam session over improvised chord changes; he assumed they were looking for a backup singer. Two weeks later, he was on stage performing lead vocals.
Taylor’s warm, buttery-smooth tenor opened up a myriad of options moving forward. For the first time in group history, Kool & The Gang could now compete with R&B crossover acts like the Commodores or Earth, Wind & Fire, former funk bands who’d reinvented themselves as mainstream attractions. Taylor crooned instead of belting, and he didn’t attack a track so much as glide over top of it. But that brand of subtlety allowed Kool & The Gang to broaden their palette in numerous ways. Without Taylor at the helm, it’s entirely possible a song like “Too Hot” never even gets off the ground.
According to legend, “Too Hot” took its title from a mid-Seventies on-stage incident where an electric piano played by original keyboardist Ricky West overheated and caught fire. That’s a legitimately great story. It also has zero connection to the song Kool & The Gang would release years later. Had “Too Hot” emerged during the West era, it undoubtedly would’ve leaned into the same party vibe as other similarly “hot” songs: “Too Hot Ta Trot,” “Hot Stuff,” “Too Hot To Stop,” even “Fire.” Kool & The Gang Mach II decided to swerve in a completely different direction. The “Too Hot” that hit the Top 5 in April 1980 turned out to be a moody, downbeat number about a marriage imploding.
Drummer George “Funky” Brown composed most of “Too Hot” by himself, resulting in a rare solo writing credit within a catalog built mainly on collaboration. (Brown did share publishing with the “Kool & The Gang” entity to acknowledge their help with the final arrangement.) That more personal approach made for a striking departure from the band’s usual formula of dance-floor workouts and minimal lyrics; “Too Hot” is possibly the first Gang song to tell an actual story, rather than repeat a handful of party chants ad nauseam. The scenario unfolds like Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear minus the malice, Springsteen’s “The River” absent any economic subtext. A couple marries too young. They drift apart, they fight constantly. Eventually, they separate. There’s no blame in Brown’s lyrics, or in Taylor’s restrained delivery: just a rueful, inevitable sadness. It’s telling that the heat in the title refers not to sexual intimacy, but rather a particularly ugly argument: “It’s too hot, too hot, lady/ Gotta cool this anger/ What a mess that we’ve made.”
“Too Hot” might be a downer emotionally, but the track itself luxuriates in grown-up, late-night sensuality. Kool & The Gang craft a slinky groove from the most minimal of elements: a murmured bass pulse, whispered clouds of electric piano, Claydes “Charles” Smith’s immortal jazz guitar. Ronald Bell’s tenor sax solo swirls like brandy in a snifter. Producer Eumir Deodato burnishes every surface to a deep, expensive burgundy. And as the primary focal point, Taylor simmers throughout, deliberately cool against the song’s rising lyrical turmoil. That final, anguished high note he hits just before the fadeout is the closest he—or anyone else in the band—comes to finally boiling over.
Like so many other Kool & The Gang cuts, “Too Hot” found a second life as a go-to sample. The tune’s languid vibe meshed nicely with the laidback trend of post-Chronic hip-hop, and soon certain elements (usually Smith's instantly recognizable guitar line) resurfaced on tracks from Miilkbone, Lil’ Zane, The Click, A Lighter Shade Of Brown, and others. (Its most successful hip-hop interpolation is discussed in “Bonus Bits” below.) But “Too Hot” had a more immediate effect on the group’s short-term fortunes, taking Kool & The Gang back to the Top 5 for the first time since 1974’s “Jungle Boogie” and pushing Ladies’ Night to platinum status. In some respects, it also paved the way for the massive single the band would release within a year’s time, the kind of gargantuan hit that, inevitably, would up overshadowing a low-key pleasure like “Too Hot.” That’s too bad, because “Too Hot” deserves better than to be buried by the broader, gaudier moments of the Kool & The Gang legacy. In its own quiet way, it’s a standout.
GRADE: 7/10
BONUS BITS: In 1995, Coolio released a pseudo-cover, also entitled “Too Hot,” as the follow-up to his across-the-board #1 single “Gangsta’s Paradise.” This particular “Too Hot” didn’t come close to achieving the heights of its predecessor, peaking at a disappointing #24 pop and #31 R&B/Hip-Hop. (In the U.K., where the ‘79 original had only reached #23, the situation was reversed: Coolio hit the Top 10 and went to #1 on their R&B chart.)
For better or worse, this is very much a Nineties remake: The entire backing track, along with the chorus, is straight-up Kool & The Gang—albeit replayed, rather than sampled. But Coolio replaces the verses with his own rapped lyrics, turning a song about a failed marriage into some weird safe-sex PSA. It’s a trick he pulled many times on the Gangsta’s Paradise album: with Smokey Robinson’s “Cruisin’,” with Billy Paul’s “Me And Mrs. Jones” (retitled “A Thing Goin’ On”), and, most famously, with Stevie Wonder’s “Pastime Paradise.” And it’s a trend that has aged… poorly. That said, “Too Hot”’s vaguely ridiculous and extremely Nineties video still brings back a ton of memories, from its Devil’s Advocate-anticipating ending to the gorgeous lead actress I may or may not have been crushing on in ‘95.