Hot by Squirrel Nut Zippers

Hot, the second album from Chapel Hill's Squirrel Nut Zippers, came out in June 1996 with Brian Paulson producing, and it doubled down on everything their debut The Inevitable started: big-band blare, hot jazz swagger and lyrics with the tongue lodged firmly in cheek. In a decade of flannel and feedback, here was a band that sounded like it had wandered in from a speakeasy.

Jimbo Mathus, Tom Maxwell and Katharine Whalen share the vocals over horns, banjo and a rhythm section, anchored by Chris Phillips on drums, that swings rather than pounds. The breakout was Maxwell's jaunty "Hell", which rode the swing revival onto alternative radio and pushed the album into the top 30 of the Billboard 200. The critics had fun with it too, and by the following December it had gone platinum. It remains the band's biggest seller.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.