MUSIC: Inclement Weather

Maybe we Americans needed something to distract us from the valiant rescue of the Iraqi people currently underway in a sweltering desert across the world. Maybe we just needed to blow off some steam. Maybe we needed a groundbreaking reality show to ask us, "Are You Hot?" Why yes, we were hot. We were sweaty and frustrated and we knew we needed something that the Beastie Boys and CNN weren't quite giving us. Maybe, just maybe, we needed new releases of old material from Hot Hot Heat and Sahara Hotnights, but maybe we were hot enough already. Frankly, a Popsicle would have been better.

But alas, the thermometer was peaking, and warming of the world showed no signs of slowing down. Hot Hot Heat decided that the best way to capitalize on the deserved success of the previous year's Make up the Breakdown would be to release Scenes One Through Thirteen, a compilation of older material, marked by styles and band members already left behind. It was interesting in the way that Dave Eggers' middle school journal might have been, which is to say, somewhat fleetingly. Everybody likes Dave Eggers, but we could have only gotten so excited about his seventh-grade ramblings. We would hope his publisher might realize this, and discourage him from publishing them. We harbored no such hopes for Warner Brothers, who apparently thought that old seven-inch EPs would make a great "new" Hot Hot Heat release, even if they were somewhat flat and overly noisy and, well, "old." We were discouraged, and a bit sunburned.

In icy Sweden, where we thought the people understood a thing or two about temperature changes, we also met a stifling blast of humidity. The all-girl garage quartet Sahara Hotnights, who hails from this land of ostensible "cold," re-released their first album, C'mon Let's Pretend in what must have been an attempt to capitalize on the success of their second album, Jennie Bomb, in the scorching American market. Newer fans were tricked into buying it because it appeared to be "new." Older fans already owned it because it was "old." Granted, it was an enjoyable album, much closer to the retro garage sound we had grown accustomed to hearing from those Swedish rocker chicks than the Hot Hot Heat album was to their most recent, more pop-driven sound. But we were still sweating, and the air off the pavement still bent and shimmered in the sun.

We popped C'mon Let's Pretend into the stereo during the warmest afternoon hours, fanned ourselves with Scenes one Through Thirteen, and waited for the rain clouds to gather.

• Macy Parker