Squawk Radio
Sunday, August 21, 2005
Elizabeth Gets Down
It’s been a while since I posted a Sunday music blog. First, the Reno conference held me up, then we had a guest blogger, then, um, I forgot. No, I was working. Yeah, that’s it. Working really hard, too, by God. So hard that I forgot to blog. It had nothing to do with having had too much wine the night before. Really. But today we return to our regularly scheduled Sunday music blog, and it’s with a bang.
How to begin to describe this band...? Even as someone who uses words for a living, I can’t seem to find the right adjectives. I suppose I could say this CD contains quintessential club/dance music. But that just isn’t enough. Scissor Sisters (and yes, the band’s name refers to, um, a sex act popular with lesbians) fuse pop music and disco, then throw in some cabaret and David Bowie glam, then add one (male) singer who favors falsetto and another (female) who says she’s “a drag queen trapped in a woman’s body,” and turn out a group who sound and look like no other band working today. Or yesterday, for that matter.
All in all, Scissor Sisters’s self-titled debut album is just a damned fun CD that turns any event (even housecleaning--hell, especially housecleaning) into a dance party (with just enough slow songs thrown in to keep you from having a heart attack). And the song “Take Your Mama,” has become one of those rare ditties that, no matter how bad or sad my mood, snaps me right out of it. Not just because it has a great beat and is easy to dance to, and not just because it has a guitar riff starting with note one that is utterly infectious. Like so many songs on the album, the lyrics are clever, evocative and funny. I mean, how can you not smile when you hear Jake Shears singing:
Now we end up takin’ the long way home
lookin’ overdressed, wearin’ buckets of stale cologne.
It’s so hard to see streets on a country road
when your glass is in the garbage and your Continental’s just been towed.
The band itself is an eclectic mix of not-quite-determined genesis. Legend has it that Shears and guitarist Scott “Babydaddy” Hoffman met at the University of Kentucky some years ago (which should make Terri run right out and buy the CD without further encouragement). But it took moving to New York (and even London) to really make things click. Ultimately, the band ended up with five members who are wholly individual from one another (and just about everyone else in the world), yet completely complementary to one another.
So if you’re into funky pop and the club scene--or if, like me, you miss funky pop and the club scene and are no longer hip enough to feel a part of it--Scissor Sisters will bring an element of both into your life. And into your kitchen. And into your car. And into your housework. The music is just really wonderful, and, as I said, highly danceable. Right down to their cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” Bet you never thought you’d dance to THAT, didja?
How to begin to describe this band...? Even as someone who uses words for a living, I can’t seem to find the right adjectives. I suppose I could say this CD contains quintessential club/dance music. But that just isn’t enough. Scissor Sisters (and yes, the band’s name refers to, um, a sex act popular with lesbians) fuse pop music and disco, then throw in some cabaret and David Bowie glam, then add one (male) singer who favors falsetto and another (female) who says she’s “a drag queen trapped in a woman’s body,” and turn out a group who sound and look like no other band working today. Or yesterday, for that matter.
All in all, Scissor Sisters’s self-titled debut album is just a damned fun CD that turns any event (even housecleaning--hell, especially housecleaning) into a dance party (with just enough slow songs thrown in to keep you from having a heart attack). And the song “Take Your Mama,” has become one of those rare ditties that, no matter how bad or sad my mood, snaps me right out of it. Not just because it has a great beat and is easy to dance to, and not just because it has a guitar riff starting with note one that is utterly infectious. Like so many songs on the album, the lyrics are clever, evocative and funny. I mean, how can you not smile when you hear Jake Shears singing:
Now we end up takin’ the long way home
lookin’ overdressed, wearin’ buckets of stale cologne.
It’s so hard to see streets on a country road
when your glass is in the garbage and your Continental’s just been towed.
The band itself is an eclectic mix of not-quite-determined genesis. Legend has it that Shears and guitarist Scott “Babydaddy” Hoffman met at the University of Kentucky some years ago (which should make Terri run right out and buy the CD without further encouragement). But it took moving to New York (and even London) to really make things click. Ultimately, the band ended up with five members who are wholly individual from one another (and just about everyone else in the world), yet completely complementary to one another.
So if you’re into funky pop and the club scene--or if, like me, you miss funky pop and the club scene and are no longer hip enough to feel a part of it--Scissor Sisters will bring an element of both into your life. And into your kitchen. And into your car. And into your housework. The music is just really wonderful, and, as I said, highly danceable. Right down to their cover of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb.” Bet you never thought you’d dance to THAT, didja?
Elizabeth Bevarly, 11:41 AM
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