We'll get her jacked up on some cheap champagne

Continuing my trip back through the 2005 album charts.

13/03/05 : Scissor Sisters - Scissor Sisters

Our second visit with Jake, Ana and friends - I think they do what they do well, but like QOTSA, it's not something I need in large quantities, so I fear this may be a bit of a drag.  It is, however one "we" owned, so I've probably heard most of it at some point around this time.

"Laura" and "Take Your Mama" are both well done and good album openers and "Filthy/Gorgeous" is also a fine track - but what about the rest of it?  Well - you know what?  It's not bad at all!  There's a lot more variety there and it's also a lot less annoying than than I was expecting and "Comfortably Numb" is a well done cover - I think it's fair to say that Pink Floyd never saw that one coming.  All in all, I'd say it was quite an enjoyable listen - I know Elton is a fan and it's quite reminiscent of him in a lot of places.  The "Message From Ms Matronic" was very bizarre though - I've no idea what that was all about.

We're at #6 in the charts this week on an impressive 58th week of a 93 week run, with it going on to spend 131 weeks on the chart in total with four weeks at #1 in its 22nd, 24th, 48th and 55th weeks - which is some impressive longevity.  The top five this week was 50 Cent (a new entry), G4, Kaiser Chiefs (another new entry), Tony Christie and Il Divo (what a bizarre mix!) and we have one more new entry in the top ten for Idlewild (#9).

Wikipedia has remarkably little on such a successful album, although it probably also explains why because it didn't do nearly as well in the US as it did here.  And when I say not nearly as well, I'm really not lying - it only got to #102 over there and it sold an astonishing ten times as many copies over here as it did over there, making it #1 in the 2004 year-end chart here.  I'm not saying we're the most progressive country ever, but I do have a slight suspicion that it might have been slightly too gay for a lot of the US whereas somehow we just kinda ignored it all and got on with it.  It also got to #1 in Ireland, but apart from that it didn't really set the world alight - I guess that's we've seen so much of them over here in the intervening years.

"Customers also listened to" The Feelng, MIKA, Orson and Razorlight.  Errr - Razorlight?  I've no idea what's going on there, but I have to report that this album was considerably more enjoyable than I was expecting - it's all well done with plenty of variety and it's got some cracking fun tracks on it.  What more can you ask for?

06/03/05 - Good in places, annoying in others
20/03/05 - A good "of its time" album

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