Scissor Sisters

One thing is for certain, The Scissor Sisters are a love it or leave it affair. With flamboyant sounds that reawake the 70's disco-rock era, these dance floor-meets-the rock club shakers are indeed a guilty pleasure or headache.

On this self-titled release, Elton John style piano rock, ala “Saturday Night Is Alright For Fighting” is hooting and hollering alive. It comes complete with the big glasses, flashy suits, honky-tonk chords, shrieks and shrills - mostly notably in “Take Your Mama” and “Music Is The Victim.” The Scissor Sisters recreation of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” makes any reference of David Gilmour turn to Ru Paul. With a disco beat twirling, the band goes through the refrain, “I, I, I have become, comfortably numb” in Bee Gee falsetto along with a Frankie Says Relax 80’s twist, as the landmark stoner theme is made into a shocking club tune. The music is a bit more subdued in “Mary,” paddling in mellow piano slink. But then dance songs like the Wham flashing “Lovers in the Backseat” and the kinky bass line of “Tits On The Radio” and “Filthy/Gorgeous” feature more falsettos, glam fusion and risqué fun reserved for drag queens.

The Scissor Sisters score low points for originality, as every beat, bass line and harmony was snatched from the Boogie Nights soundtrack. But they score with their sense of humor, outlandish style and unabashed guts to combine glam, rock, disco and funk back to the radio waves. Like The Village People, who we still hear at every sporting event and wedding party in the country, The Scissor Sisters may have a flash hit of their own. We can only hope it’s not an acronym chorused hand gesture dance.