Steve 'Flash' JuonA little background research before delving into “Too Hot to Bother” suggested to me Sexy Delicious is hard to define. Even interviewers had a hard time figuring out whether or not to call them hip-hop, which prompted this cryptic response from frontman Jamie Quinn: “We don’t consider this a hip-hop project, although there are definitely elements of hip-hop all over the record.” Okay Sexy Delicious – besides sounding like an overindulgent desert, what exactly are you? Well if you listened to “Dollars in My Pocket,” you’d be pretty well convinced they are a Minneapolis rap group with live instrumentation.
“Mannn! I got enough for some licor-ice
If it’s on sale, fin’ to spend my paper quick
Or I could ball up to the mall
and spend all my cash on a three minute massage
I want it all – but I can only have a little
So I’m biting off a nibble of that extra crip-sy chicken”
If your first exposure to Sexy Delicious was “My Guitar’s a Woman” though, you’d think they were an alternative rock group.
“My guitar’s a woman, and she lays across my bed
She’s tempting me, taunting me
Calling me, wanting me
Sucking away all my friends”
But wait – take a third turn with “Floating” – and you’ll suddenly feel this is a R&B crew and Quinn is their crooner.
“Almost, from the beginning
I knew you changed me
So close to forgetting my life
Oh no, no you didn’t
Realize you got me drifting off this chair
like what’s going on? All night…”
What I can tell you after two-thirds of an hour has gone by is that “Too Hot to Bother” is impossible to pigeonhole, as is Sexy Delicious themselves. If they wanted to be strictly hip-hop, they’d come across like Gym Class Heroes, with Jamie as their Travie McCoy. If they wanted to be strictly pop rock, Jamie would be traveling down the Bruno Mars road. What else is clear is that Ben Kelly (bass), Dan Horvath (drums) and Eric Mayson (keys) can jam with him no matter which direction he decides to take it, which makes songs like “Weird Without You” fun to listen to. They feel like the band playing at the bar when you didn’t expect there to be one, but who were good enough that you copped their CD for $5 after you had a few rounds and bopped your head for a while. If you’re looking for pure hip-hop this isn’t it, but this isn’t bad.