Album Details

• Artist: Scissor Sisters
• Album: Night Work
• Label: Universal
• Year of Release: 2010
• ME Rating:
• Reviewed by: MusicCritic on 2011-02-27

Your enjoyment of Scissor Sisters will depend heavily on your attitude toward disco music. If a novelty band with members named Ana Matronic, Babydaddy, Randy Real, and Del Marquis playing a tongue-in-cheek Pro Tools mash-up of the Bee Gees and Queen seems like it would be your cup of tea, you won’t be disappointed.

If you’re repulsed by the idea of listening to something Vice magazine editors would throw on at an office party, feel free to take a pass. Night Work is a purely wink-wink, dancing-in-American-Apparel affair. Lyrical content is irrelevant – the beats and techno flourishes are what matter here. This is music designed to get your feet tapping.

Whether it succeeds or not is up to you. Every song sounds like a slightly-altered copy of the previous track (with the exception of ‘Running Out,’ which sounds like Devo building a song around the backing guitar of The Cult’s ‘She Sells Sanctuary’) and the line between homage and theft gets a little blurry at times. It’s hard to argue against the technical skill evident on this album – Scissor Sisters clearly know how to write and arrange catchy pop numbers – but you’ll either go with the band’s shtick or you won’t. Night Work is a party from start to finish, but it’s also repetitive and unapologetically vapid.

That said, music doesn’t always need to be a pensive, multi-layered expression of human thoughts and feelings. Maybe you just need an excuse to tap your fingers against the steering wheel as you drive. If that’s the case, and if you find the idea of ironic disco glitter rock palatable, Night Work just might be the album for you.

Kevin Hartford

User Reviews and Comments

on 2011-04-05 dscanland Said:

I've liked both of the previous Scissor Sisters albums. I might just give this one a go. It's their cover of Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" that sold me originally and I've hung on.
Not Rated