I will always remember Sunday, September 26th 2004, primarily
\nbecause of the Green Bay Packer-Indianapolis Colts game I was able
\nto attend (Note to Green Bay: LEARN HOW TO PLAY DEFENSE!). However,
\nsomething else happened that Sunday. What was that you ask? I found
\na candidate for album of the year.<\/p>\n
I make no bones about it; I’m a sucker for anything retro. I
\nplay videogames on my Sega Genesis, I listen to classic rock on a
\nturntable my grandparents bought for me for graduation, and I’m a
\nhistory buff. So, when an album comes my way that sounds retro,
\nit’s already scored a few points in my book. However, Scissor
\nSisters goes above and beyond my expectations for a “retro”
\nalbum.<\/p>\n
Sometimes artists just take buckets of different paints, and
\njust dump them on a canvas, and voila, it’s proclaimed as art. That
\nis exactly what the Scissor Sisters have done on this album.
\nRemember any pop singles from the 70’s? You know, songs from Elton
\nJohn, Queen, ELO, the Bee Gees, ABBA, or practically any disco
\nsingle? Well, you can hear hints of practically all of them on this
\nalbum. The Scissor Sisters have taken the best elements of pop in
\nthe 70’s, and mixed them all together. There’s even a bit of rock
\nand electronica in there for good measure.<\/p>\n
There is something on every song on this album that will reel
\npeople in. For me, it was hearing a clip of “Take Your Mama” and
\ngoing, “Holy Crap, is that Elton John circa 1971 singing?” For
\nothers, it might be the Bee Gee inspired disco cover of Pink
\nFloyd’s “Comfortably Numb,” which despite my misgivings blew me
\naway. Or how about the R&B number “Laura”, with Stevie
\nWonder-esque, vocoder inflected vocals? The list goes on and
\non.<\/p>\n
The Darkness hit it big this year, with their exaggerated lyrics
\nand over the top, Queen-like songs. While that didn’t work for me,
\nthe Scissor Sisters take that same attitude, and make it work. The
\nmaterial is lighter, which certainly helps, but there is a definite
\n“f*** you” attitude that permeates throughout the album. Everything
\nis intentionally campy and derivative. The band almost seems to be
\ndaring you, the listener, to take this album seriously, which is
\nsomething you can’t. “Tits on the Radio”, “Filthy\/Gorgeous,” if
\nthese songs were in the hands of 99 out of 100 groups, we would
\nblast them for such material. However, the Scissor Sisters are that
\none group that can pull it off.<\/p>\n
I’ve mentioned that every song on this album is superb, but
\nthere are some tracks that just transcend the rest of the album.
\nThose in particular would be tracks like “Mary” or the brilliant
\n“Return to Oz.” The former is a heart-tugging Elton piano ballad,
\nwith a refrain reminiscent of “Tiny Dancer.” “Return to Oz” is a
\nmix between “Mother” from Pink Floyd’s The Wall, and Bowie’s “Space
\nOddity,” with a David Gilmour-like solo to boot.<\/p>\n
If there was ever a guilty pleasure album, this is it. It is
\nnearly flawless in every aspect, never losing momentum, and more
\nimportantly, never taking itself seriously. And do you know what is
\nreally scary? I forgot to mention, in my unabashed praise, that
\nthis is their debut album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":26834,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[7075],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38121","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-scissor-sisters","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38121"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38121"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}