Jingly guitars, horn stabs, a beat that makes you strut while walking down the street — no, it’s not the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. It’s the Scissor Sister’s back trying to buck the sophomore slump. How do they do? Pretty damn well, thank you very much. When they released their debut album it turned into a commercial hit in the UK and a cult hit in the US. It’s a searing blast of raunch, debauchery and warnings of living a hedonistic life that you could, as it happens, dance to. In other words, a very hard act to follow.

The first single from their follow-up, Ta-Dah, is "I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’." Not only does it deal with the Elton John comparisons, but includes John in on the song writing and playing. The same thing for the song "Intermission", which is exactly what it may seem on the surface, but listen to the lyrics and you’ll realize that the Sisters are a bit darker this go around. It also explains why the song sounds like "I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself" from John’s Honky Chateau album.

It’s quite obvious the Sisters love wearing their influences like glitter eye shadow; however, they also aim to surprise. Arguably the best song on the album, "I Can’t Decide," is a Dixieland jazz pop song complete with banjo. Again, it’s the lyrics that truly make the song rise above everything else. In fact, the song may not be about a relationship at all; Jake Shears may have his cross-hairs on fame: "It’s a bitch convincing people to like you/If I stop now call me a quitter/If lies were cats you’d be a litter."

There is no doubt that the Sisters’ lyrical bite is still in place; however, the music itself is a hodgepodge of glam rock, disco, pop, R&B, and 80’s power ballads. One of the more beautiful ballads has Shears emoting palpably for the first time. A truly emotional powerhouse, "Might Tell You Tonight" actually has Jake The Party Boy thinking about settling down with a man who may not be the one of his dreams, but one that he respects and adores. "Life seems so much slower/With your toothbrush by the mirror/Can I make this any clearer?" he sings before the song launches into its moving chorus that includes another banjo.

The rest of the album is filled with the dance songs you’d expect from the Sisters including a song strangely named "Paul McCartney" (complete with a B-52’s style break) which isn’t about the man, but seemingly his music set to a frantic beat. Elton John is on this album. Could they be vying for McCartney to join them on the next? There is no denying that would be an experience worth waiting for.

Still, Ta-Dah has enough of the naughty ("I ain’t got nothing but your seed on my face," for example) to let you know they want to continue to party, but also has a few more serious moments than their debut. Death comes to play a lot in the words, which makes sense as the woman who inspired the song "Mary" from the first album passed away this year. She was a great friend of the band and the loss hit them pretty hard. Not to say they are becoming maudlin; however, the loss gives the band a bit more complexity which garners more respect for the job they are doing and what the Scissor Sisters are becoming — a viable musical force.

UK Chart Update: "I Don’t Feel LIke Dancin’" just logged its third week at #1 on the UK charts and Ta-Dah debuted at #1 on the album chart.

Nellie McKay (pronounced mc-KIE - rhymes with ‘pie’) finally has a release date for her second album, Pretty Little Head. After arguments and splits and all sorts of delaying of things, the follow-up to her outstanding Get Away From Me will be out on Halloween — the same day as Aimee Mann’s holiday album!  You can go to Pitchfork to get details of the history of what happened, but the album came so close to being released that Columbia had sent out advanced copies to the press. The reviews that were published were quite good and now the rest of us can hear it!

…in a month or so.

SQUEAL!

Listening to: Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla - Schoolhouse Rock

As I write this, it’s Sunday and I’m sitting at my desk working on wiping and reinstalling the boss’s computer, so I have some time to kill. I really don’t want to write anything in depth between installations and reboots (freakin’ Windows), so I called Leslie to give me a word from which to bounce into a post for today.

The word she gave me was contentious.

Of course, I told her I had to look that one up, which she said she had to as well last night which is why it was on her mind. Coincidentally, I had just watched the “interview” on Fox News Sunday with former President Clinton, so when Leslie told me what contentious meant, my mind went directly to this segment that fastlad had posted on his blog.

It was great to see Clinton defend himself to a network, in my opinion, that has as little integrity as the current administration. In short, I’m enjoying the left getting as loud-mouthed as the right.

A conversation Mateo and I have had on a few occasions is about the integrity of all journalism, be it CNN or Fox News. Having both been trained in the ‘arts’, it was ground into both of us about unbiased reporting. Get the facts. Granted, facts are based many times on eyewitness reports and everyone’s reality is skewed and filtered through their own brain; however, interviewing several to find the consistencies when you can helps get beyond human perception.

My problem with television news and why I didn’t pursue journalism as a career is that so much opinion is being offered as fact because they know the average person doesn’t have time or just won’t check sources to validate what they are being told. Unfortunately, I also believe apathy comes into play as well.

Granted the sensationalism for ratings is out of hand, too. In fact, it makes me quite contentious at times.

Update (4:00pm): Looks like Fox is trying to rewrite its own history again and took the Clinton interview down from YouTube and other places; however, you can still see the interview here.

I received an email from numly.com that I’m their Author Of The Week, which is very cool. Thank you so much, guys.

Numly.com is an easy way to help with copyrighting your blog postings or bascially anything digital. Andy at the Spicy Cauldron turned me onto the site and now have ESN’s for many of the posts here. The service is a nice way to help protect your virtual property.

Listening to: Kids In America - Kim Wilde