Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters
- FaceOff - עימות חזיתי
- Feb 2
- 5 min read
Written By: Moti Kupfer
Release date - 2.2.2004
"I love the tone that's in your laugh, Gasping for an extra breath, Waiting for the time to pass, I believe in days ahead, Don't spend another night alone, Cross and wishing you were dead"
Jason Sellards did not have an easy childhood once he gradually came to understand that he was not really attracted to the opposite sex. At the age of 15, following the advice of a close friend, he “jumped into the water” and came out to his parents (his father an entrepreneur, his mother a Baptist), telling them that he was gay. In hindsight, that advice turned out to be disastrous.
Sellards, born in 1978 in the city of Mesa (Spanish for “table”), a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, did not exactly grow up in a city known for openness or acceptance of different ways of life, to put it mildly. Certainly not in 1994.
In his distress, Sellards found support in a close friend named Mary Hanlon, who became an emotional anchor during his hardest moments. He later gravitated toward New York City, a place far more open to gay culture and identity, changed his name to Jake Shears, and together with Scott Hoffman (Babydaddy) formed the band "Scissor Sisters", whose debut album was released on February 2, 2004.
Shears dedicated "Mary" to Mary Hanlon, his close friend during those difficult years. The song opens as a dreamy love ballad, led by Hoffman’s keyboards, which sound as if they were lifted straight from a mid-’70s "Bee Gees" track. Yet as the song unfolds, it subtly foreshadows what is to come, hinting that Mary herself was struggling to survive the demons in her own life. A year and a half after the song’s release, Mary Hanlon tragically passed away from a brain aneurysm in April 2006.
The music of "Scissor Sisters" sounds like a collision of electroclash, disco, and glam rock. Shears was deeply influenced by and openly admired "the Bee Gees", especially Robin Gibb, as well as Elton John, "ABBA", David Bowie, "Pet Shop Boys", Madonna, "the Beatles", and more.
The group began to take shape in 1998, when Shears traveled to Lexington, Kentucky to visit a former classmate and met Steve Hoffman there, a gay musician from a Jewish family (his older brother Ben is a comedian and musician).
The two later moved to New York and in 2000 formed "Scissor Sisters" as a kind of performance-art stunt, staging provocative and outrageous shows in clubs such as Luxx, the beating heart of the electroclash scene in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where Shears was living at the time.
Not long after, Ana Kirby joined the lineup, better known by her stage name Ana Matronic, who claimed that the band’s ultimate mission was to liberate people’s hidden fantasies and pull them out of everyday routine into a world of dreams and desires.
Guitarist Del Marquis (born Derek Gruen) and drummer Paddy Boom (born Patrick Seacor) completed the lineup. Boom learned to play drums by copying the style of Larry Mullen Jr. ("U2") and later became a devoted fan of Stewart Copeland, drummer of "The Police". If elements of "the Police"’s drumming style can be heard in some "Scissor Sisters" songs, that is no coincidence. Boom was also the only openly straight member of the band and the only one with solid stage experience, having previously been part of the ’80s indie art-rock band "Sloan Rangers".
After several years of grueling work in New York (including collaboration with the label A Touch of Class), "Scissor Sisters" finally found success in the UK and Ireland. Shears, known for his provocative dancing and flamboyant costumes (a legacy of his past as a go-go dancer and erotic dancer in male strip clubs), did not sit well with American audiences, especially given the band’s heavy inspiration from drag culture and LGBTQ+ themes during its early years.
According to Babydaddy, their goal was to create the perfect pop-rock album that grabs you at the beginning, takes you on a journey in the middle, and brings you back to the same place at the end.
The album’s opening track, "Laura", is remembered mainly for Shears’ raw vocal delivery, his piano playing, and the song’s deliberately ambiguous lyrics. At times, Shears linked them to Laura Palmer from "Twin Peaks", while at other times the song referred to an anonymous hairdresser he once knew. Overall, it seems that Shears and Hoffman, the songwriting duo behind the band, deliberately enjoy keeping the meanings of their songs blurred, likely for good reason. In the United States, they were asked to record a toned-down version of the album, a request they refused.
The second single, released just days before the album itself, is a masterclass in how to reinvent a cover song. It delivers a polished, rhythmic reworking of the slow and restrained "Comfortably Numb" by "Pink Floyd", blended with the driving guitar lines of another Floyd classic, "Run Like Hell" (the opening chords also echo "Bring on the Night" by "The Police"). The original song was written about Roger Waters’ experiences, not to say hallucinations, after falling ill before a concert in Philadelphia. A doctor initially diagnosed possible food poisoning. “He didn’t listen to me,” Waters told Rolling Stone. “I later found out I had hepatitis.” Waters was given a sedative and persuaded to go on stage. After the injection, he could barely move his limbs. “God knows what he gave me, but it was a very heavy muscle relaxant.” Waters later jotted down a few lines based on the experience, frightening and claustrophobic in tone.
The album’s third single, "Take Your Mama", functions as a form of emotional compensation for Shears’ traumatic coming-out experience at the age of 15. In the song, he introduces his mother to gay nightlife in an attempt to bridge the emotional gap between them.
Other standout tracks include the quiet, sorrowful ballad "Mary", and the UK Top 5 single "Filthy / Gorgeous", which portrays New York City from its fringes, focusing on escort services catering to the city’s elite, told from the perspective of the girls themselves.
In keeping with long-standing musical tradition, the album also includes songs dealing with hard drug use. "Music Is the Victim" and the closing track "Return to Oz" address substance abuse in general, and more specifically within the LGBTQ+ community.
The band received a Grammy nomination for "Comfortably Numb", and the debut album proved to be a major success, particularly in the UK, where it reached number one and became the country’s best-selling album of 2004, with all five singles charting inside the UK Top 20. The album is also listed as one of the "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" list.
For Listening: Spotify, Apple Music
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