Album Reviews |

Scissor Sisters

Related Artists - Abba, Culture Club, Madonna
Related Genres - Pop & Dance

Scissor Sisters 5½ ( 2004 )
Laura / Take Your Mama Out / Comfortably Numb / Mary / Lovers In The Backseat / Tits On The Radio / Filthy And Gorgeous / Music Is The Victim / Better Luck Next Time / It Can't Come Quickly Enough / The Return To Oz / A Message From Ms Matronic / The Skins / Get It Get It

One of the sensations of 2004 has certainly been The Bee Gees meets dance music and strange novelty cabaret.... that is The Scissor Sisters. A couple of good singles, they've flown. The album has sold hugely in the UK off the back of these hit singles, and all is well. Or at least, so it would seem. In reality, the album itself offers far too many weak moments of basic arseing around a single joke, or a very basic synth driven musical backing of the kind Sparks would have produced during their absolute lowest ebb during parts of the 80s. Still, there are the singles here and they are indeed some of the catchiest things you'll hear, or would have heard recently. Scissor Sisters are hip enough to appear regularly in the likes of N.M.E. and pop enough to get played on daytime radio. Huge crossover appeal. I mentioned the 80s? Yes, I did! A lot of 80s albums were a throwback to the pre-rubber soul era. Back in the early 60s, albums would be built around one or two hit singles, with the remainder of the album being filler. 80s? Well, commercial pop records during the 80s had a similar thing going on. You'd get a Eurthymics albums perhaps? A couple of grand singles, the rest being stuff you wouldn't really choose to listen to. Unless perhaps, there was simply a lack of anything else going on in your life.

The one single pure masterstroke Scissor Sisters perform on this album is their cover of gloomiest man in rock Roger Waters, Pink Floyd epic 'Comfortably Numb'. Transforming Mr Waters serious points and angst and everything else into The Bee Gees meet Austin Powers meets the 22nd century, really has to be heard to be believed. It's quite brilliant. Opening song and hit song, 'Laura' is bouncier and sillier than a bouncy castle being used at the local clown convention. Again though, 'Laura' is excellent, catchier than flu, as happy a song as you'll ever come across. A brilliant song to put on to get you in the mood before going out of a night. Highlights of the rest of the album outside of the hit songs? Well, there aren't any, as such. Scissor Sisters have nothing to save their souls, to save themselves, bar their clutch of admittedly excellent singles. Is it enough? Well, no, quite frankly it isn't. Buy the singles, or download them. If you do, you won't be missing anything else particularly worthwhile contained on this debut Scissor Sisters long-player.

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Readers Comments Trevor Evans - Young paradoxx75@msn.com Thank you! I agree that this album sucks, and man, my hopes were high after reading all of the good reviews. Bad Elton John meets disco Bee-Gees. In fact, i don't even like the pink floyd cover man, ukkk. 4/10 Doug Young dougnaustin@yahoo.com I have to disagree that there are only a couple of good tracks. The last track - Return To Oz - is kind of weak, admittedly, but I think the rest of the CD is awesome! Melissa melissadotcommelissa@msn.com A think the Scissor Sisterrs album is the best i hav eard all year! So der is no reason tae rate it onli 5 1/2 !!!! Stefanie stefanievarga@gmx.net Well, everyone is entitled to an opinion, but I really think that this album is awesome! If you concern that it has been produced in Scott Hoffmans' (aka BabyDaddy) tiny apartment studio, it's simply good what they came up with. I'm very open for various styles of music, so if you don't fancy dance/disco, say a bit more eletronically music, you'll probably won't like this album. (If you like electro music, check out their demo album tracks - fantastic :). T. Roth zipper08@aol.com I found the "SS" album to be refreshing in these days of dopey girl singers and sap rap. Long Live the SISTERS!! Preston preston32_98@yahoo.com The Sisters in Concert ROCK! The sheer coming together of any and all 80's, 70's music is EXPLOSIVE! Jake Sheers: the combination of Mick Jagger, Jethro Tull & Austin Powers.. To see him live on stage is just incredible, Ana Matronic: if you could combine Blondie, the B52's, Janis Joplin & Betty Boop into one person, I still don't feel that you could match her talent!! Their music is truly inspirational and "honest" (What a relief from all this Britneyesque and American Idol crap we hear on the radio! I hate the scissor sisters ihatethescissorsisters@ihatethescissorsisters.com I got so fucking pissed when I heard them do "Comfortably Numb" on SNL. It's like a disco-techno fusion piece of shit. The only reason they're popular is because of the image they portray. People will call you a gay-basher or whatever if you say you don't like them for their music. bassplayeredd eddie123zeppelin@hotmail.com some of their songs sound o.k. but they can never be forgiven for their truly awful rendition of comfortably numb. lewis lewisthegreat@hotmail.co.uk whats all this bling about comfotably numb. apart from the words everything else is different about the song. i must admit that it shouldnt of been the first single to be released from the album because it caused me to be secptical towards them, but after hearing the rest of the album i think the scissor sisters are truely awsome! paul spectorsound@aol.com positive proof that the more shite the act, the bigger the sales. see also the latest load of mewling bedwetters like coldplay, keane, snowpatrol etc zzzzzzzz. music for students and middle aged women who buy those tv advertised greatest ever love songs albums. Steve ARDMS1@aol.com One word to describe them after seeing them in concert twice. A W S O M E! fresh sound, bitch'n stage show, not the run of the mill band, not a clone band by any means! get a clue, this is the new face of rock/disco and it is here to stay! Was wasguard-music@yahoo.co.uk This album puts all the sound-same, drivelling, snivelling current so-called trendy hip bands in the shade for ingenuity, fun, rhythym, technical expertise, prose, and sense of life. A wonderful sense of individualistic style and a demonstration of talent that most other esteemed new bands of today can only dream of. charlotte suga_high59@hotmail.com im guessing its not your style, because im obsessed with the cd. a lot of people dont seem to like it the first time around, but its a grow-on cd. and as for comfortably numb, i love it. the trippy disco-tecno style suits the lyrics quite keenly. i'd give it an 9/10, because i dont really like the song filthy/gorgeous, but everythign else is perfect. and did anyone else notice that the beginnig of "lovers on the radio" sounds like "she blinded me with science"???? or am i just crazy Korrin argybargy@ohdear.com I think this album is really good, so I'm gonna put my 10 cents in here. I think that when an artist does a cover song, you have to really try not to compare it with the original, rather as a piece on its own. SS's version of comfortably numb was very well done in my opinion (and I say this as a huge PF fan)although I will agree with whoever said it shouldn't have been their first single. But we're not discussing the one song, we're discussing the album, and as a whole I think it is fantastic, at least worthy of a 7 or an 8 out of ten! :) Stephen stephendfall@yahoo.co.uk Terrible. If you want good 1970s pop disco, listen to The Bee Gees or Donna Summer or Abba. There's a distinct lack of inspiration here. The vocals are especially grating.

In a decade where guilty pleasures have become some sort of weird badge of credibility, where it's cooler to go out in public as a Heaven 17 than an Arctic Monkeys fan, The Scissor Sisters fit right in. Still, The Bee Gees should probably assert their moral rights and kick Scissor Sisters into touch. Lead single 'I Don't Feel Like Dancin' really does resemble The Bee Gees produced by Pete Waterman and sung by Robbie Williams filtered through a dance/leo sayer blender. The constant Elton John comparisons in the press ( although Elton actually releases good records ) has resulted in a friendship between the two artists. 'Intermission' is one result of this friendship, an unlikely Scissor Sisters/Elton John/Van Dyke Parks collaboration. Even two of my favourite artists ( and the scissor sisters ) trying to sound Beatles is failing to cheer me. The resulting two minutes, thirty seven seconds is just way too knowing for its own good. 'Ta-Dah' is an album guaranteed to split the critics and the audience you see, although the majority of simple pop-loving folk don't care about cool, credibility or influences. Pop has always been here today, gone tomorrow. Then dug up again in ten years time as some kind of weird nostalgic pleasure ode to the greener grass of simpler times. The problem with Scissor Sisters, is they are already appealing to those old enough to be embarrassed by the 70s whilst simultaneously appealing to those same ( now parents ) music lovers children. So, where Scissor Sisters will be in ten years time is another matter altogether. Perhaps if everything is new in ten years time, people will indeed get nostalgic for bands like Scissor Sisters and a time when nothing was new. Doesn't seem likely though, does it?

As one disco tracks follows another, 'Ta-Dah' becomes incredibly monotonous. It lacks particular highs and lows, so in one sense, it's a more consistent effort than these guys debut album. 'Ta-Dah' is predictably a cheese fest designed to pick up where the singles from the debut LP left off. Speaking of which, 'Kiss You Off' will surely become a single with a funny video and much knowing and well thought out jokes and celebrity guest stars. Hints of the 80s permeate 'Kiss You Off' and a couple of other songs. Best two songs are 'I Don't Feel Like Dancin' and 'Kiss You Off'. 'Land Of A Thousand Words' is an attempted MOR late seventies ballad, the guys living upto the Elton John comparisons and also injecting a little solo-beatles ( Lennon/Harrison ), Scissor Sisters becoming the influences that's been attributed to them rather than becoming themselves.

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Readers Comments Dwight dsk814000@yahoo.com Scissor Sisters is probably the best act that emerged in XXI century, and Ta-Dah is the best album they recorded so far. They have incredible sence of melody, melody that I can hum, I hope Radiohead members are reading it. Lyrics are amazing, words are so well put together, and damn, they are so good! There is Sir Elton John's golden touch on 2 songs, as well as David Bowie's guitarist Carlos Alomar's. Although it's not surprising: Scissor Sisters are musical heirs of Bowie and Elton, proudly carrying the torch of tradition into XXI century. hardly_punctuating justto_haveone@hotmail.com I've just gotta declare, "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" is quite simply The Best direction to start a record, and this is The Best song as one just can't get Better! Even more, it has Elton John on (well-played, as any dope who listens would think!) piano. Without this song, I would say "fuck pop" A WHOLE LOT more constantly; "hallelujah" to allegorical shit! - "Shit" meaning generally typical things made by life's processes, not the icky squishy shit. No, that too! Ta-Dah is more underrated than an Atmosphere work that only millions of people know of. More underrated than giving "Source Tags & Codes" from Trail of Dead or ANY Fleetwood Mac compilation less than a 10/10. As misunderlooked as Carlos Alomar himself, who's on here. Let us go to the second track, "She's My Man / and we've got all the balls we need," which further declares the Scissor Sisters' lean toward metaphor-which-isn't-metaphor-since-it-can-be-downright-true and referenceable noises. If "I Can't Deci! de whether you should live or die / O, you'll probably go to heaven / Please don't hang your head and cry / No wonder why / my heart feels dead inside / It's cold and hard and petrified..." weren't so catchy, then "I Can't Decide" would solve ANY stressful problems a thoughtful person gets. "Land of a Thousand Words," with its best lyric, "you just keep on saving the day," is quite the slow pop love song, giving me a taste of not only The Beatles (who are just too popular yet whose great-ass song titles only fans hear of) but this weird taste of modern Timberlake-esque "pop"; it may not be justly delectable on its own, but it serves a good time on this disc-o'-tracks... that MUST mean consistency somehow (Maybe because one is enlightened by EACH song, so that you wouldn't be brought down by how a song would sound to you off-record. Damn, this is why I perceive albums to change my thoughts for-the-better so much.). I can get why some wouldn't find Ta-Dah better than Britney ! Spears' "Blackout" then (regardless of how differet the pop of! the Sis ters might seem, there's still reference to very well-known typical pop), and Ta-Dah is so good that I can't even disagree with succumbing to blindly call SOME haters "gay-bashers" even if I don't know: it's all just too catchy (like the album's cool shit)! "Intermission" and "Kiss You Off" definitely take the position of songs in the album that bring chronological listeners' interests back; they're well-worded and nice, any can agree. Unless the Sisters and gang plagiarize, then I wouldn't agree, but I've read enough reviews to just think that they come up with catchy crap that easily references popular groups so that certain sounds get the label of "everyone's heard this tune. It's thought, but it's good thought, man. Unless you're in the mood of thinkin' there is no bad "thought;" then I wouldn't need the but. Good pop is some love, and "who said love's a bitch'll sit next to me, honey." Okay, now that you've read it, you can gossip to yourself how inelo! quently pointless this review is: "Why didn't (I) at least use a damned dictionary!" That's what I'm reckoning about doing right this second, anyway.

Night Work 6½ ( 2011 )
Night Work / Whole New Way / Fire With Fire / Any Which Way / Harder You Get / Running Out / Something Like This / Skin This Cat / Skin Tight / Sex and Violence / Night Life / Invisible Light

Like a long, drunken party of a night out, you love the experience and enjoy some happy nostalgia for a few weeks after, basking in the glow of happiness. Ultimately however, unless something absolutely extraordinary happens, that night out either flows out of your memory altogether after time or gets replaced by the latest night out in your emotions and favourites. Scissor Sisters albums are very much like this, initially perhaps played to death then left to gather dust, or propping up shelves or filling 2nd hand CD racks and internet sites. 'Night-Work' has already started filling 2nd hand CD racks yet is actually their most cohesive and enjoyable LP to date. Some songs remain the ultimate cheese party, some are simple dance/pop tunes - the Bee Gees remaining a prime influence. Despite scrapping an entire albums worth of material prior to assembling this set of tunes, weaknesses remain. I guess it's simply the fact it's difficult to seriously plan to sound carefree - you've actually got to be carefree to achieve that. So, Scissor Sisters have polished up the lows and dusted down the highs to sound not terribly interesting in places, dare I say boring?

The album cover art features a pair of clenched male buttocks, lyrically the album seems less cheeky and camp than previously and more directly aimed at the natural constituency for Scissor Sisters, the gay audience. They do try and diversify, not enough but they try. Musically 'Running Out' reminds me of Duran Duran in places, always welcome is that sound. 'Any Which Way' is a classic Scissor Sisters play the songbook of The Bee-Gees moment and the closing 'Invisible Light' features serious actor Sir Ian Mckellen of all people. This track was released to preview the album and it rightly pricked up a few eyebrows - this is a stomping, serious yet still fun dancefloor monster lasting six minutes. It's the sound of a credible Scissor Sisters, such a thing previously though of as impossible. At times sounding like The Pet Shop Boys (no bad thing) it has an excellent instrumental section over which Ian McKellen appears spoken word style before the song flows back to it's euphoric close. All of this is of course, a good thing. On the otherhand 'Whole New Way' sounds like a Robbie Williams song, right down to the way the vocalist sings. That of course, is a bad thing.

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