Scissor Sisters, JLS and a couple of other glaring errors

Remember our effusive and searching preview of what The Scissor Sisters album might have in store for us over the summer? Well, the Sisters have lifted the lid on the first single from that campaign, "Fire With Fire". In the absence of a proper video, here's a one nabbed off the Chris Moyles' Breakfast show a recording of it courtesy of the good folks who populate youtube:



We have tried so, so hard to like this song. And, lest we be misunderstood, let us stipulate that we do not dislike "Fire With Fire". In the same way that we didn't dislike "Just Might Tell You Tonight" from Ta-Dah. In fact, lyrically, Fire With Fire picks up that incredible ability of The Scissor Sisters to write heartbreaking and emotionally resonant lyrics in amongst all of the seedy darkness which pervades their work. Lines like "love was just something you found to add to your collection" are definitely on the amazing side of things. But, ultimately, this song does not scream "comeback" or, indeed, hint towards the darker and more underground sound that Jake Shears alluded to when interviewed by Popjustice. In the same way that "Invisible Light" is definitely an album track, despite its obvious amazing qualities, so too "Fire With Fire" should occupy that point on the album where everything becomes a little more introspective. For our money, the only way we can see this catching on is if it really catches the imagination of the festival crowd who use the whole thing as a "singalong album". Otherwise, there's a real danger of this single just being a little too soft an option and thus killing the momentum of the album campaign before it's even got going. As huge Scissor Sisters fans, we sincerely hope that Jake, Ana, Del and Baby Daddy know what they're doing.

Moving on to a slightly different end of the pop spectrum, JLS' new single is seventeen shades of awful, and not just because it references The Sound of Music with the subtlety of a brick with "THIS IS A REFERENCE TO THE SOUND OF MUSIC" scrawled all over it. "The Club Is Alive" sounds a little something like this:



It's all a little bit "Blue" isn't it really? And given they're already confirmed to be reforming, there's probably no need for JLS to be raining on their parade. The problem with this song is that it takes anything which might have been catchy or engaging, and ruins it amongst some ludicrous production. The vocals are fairly typical JLS fare, and the "you could be the DJ, I could be the dancefloor" bit is alright. But it's almost like the record company dragged them in and said "Well, boys, you know how Beat Again, Everybody in Love and One Shot were fairly pleasant efforts which resonated well with our key demographics? Well we need to put something out there which proves beyond a doubt that you've all still got Y chromosomes. So you're all going to warble on about screwing someone in a club. Is that OK?" And they all nodded and lived happily ever after.

As an aside, we also can't abide Julie Andrews. Indeed, in our dim and distant past, we set up a facebook group expressing our dislike for Ms. Andrews. Four years on, and the hate mail still comes flooding in. Good times.

And on one final point, they're re-jigged and thrown a video together for Josh Dubovie's Eurovision entry "That Sounds Good To Me" (the only place where you can see the video is the BBC's website). It was very kind of Pete Waterman to delve into his bag of tricks and throw some outdated production at this godawful effort but it's plain to see that there are some turds you simply can't polish. It still sounds bloody awful.

And that's your lot. Except to say that we've been extremely remiss in stating that it's not all bad news for pop music. Alphabeat's new single "DJ (I Could Be Dancing)" is actually brilliant.



Thank God for that. It's out on 31st May and it would be just swell if y'all could download it and prove that pop hasn't quite eaten itself just yet.