Okay, we’re cheating here, but Azealia Banks, you guys.
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[5.27]
John Seroff: It’s not like I looked to Scissor Sisters as paragons of reliability but the decade-long niche they’ve filled (somewhere between Elton John and Basement Jaxx) has produced dramatic, decadent and dependably enjoyable music. “Shady Love” is a turn for the muddy worst, a pastiche of LMFAO-by-way-of-Ibiza that’s rote at best and a hot mess at worst. Bonus negativity: shoehorning Azealia into a forgettable hook while opting to spotlight Jake Shears’ cut-rate MC Chris rap skills defines NAGL.
[3]
Alfred Soto: Who benefits from this collaboration? Not Azealia Banks, who knows more about how to sing polysyllables than Jake Shears knows about sodomy in song; and not Scissor Sisters, who’ve devolved from wannabe skanks to aging queens dancing to LMFAO at a tea party. The track’s only hint of wit: the surf guitar solo at 2:55.
[2]
Brad Shoup: Comparisons to “212” are inevitable; honestly, this sounds like “212” designed by committee. Shears’ rap sheds much of Banks’ raunch while holding to a sliver of her technical glee. Krystal PepsyAzealia’s afterchorus is a mystical cousin to the “212” bridge — thus it melds much better with Shears’ singing than his flow. Diluted Banks still hits the system hard, though.
[6]
Edward Okulicz: A really, really good idea in theory, but not in practice. Scissor Sisters have been pretty lost since the first album. Rather than write amazing songs, they seem to write around sounds — they know Jake Shears’ falsetto was great on “Comfortably Numb,” but the fact is it’s not great on everything, and it’s not great here, pile-driving an underwhelming, underwritten chorus into the ground. And they haven’t found anything really good to add to it or replace it with, either. The music shoots for sleaze but without any kinetic potential, it’s all thought and no action; the verses need some low-end badly. And Shears’ rapping is endearingly goofy but not even as funny as Robbie Williams’. If he wants to make this sort of music, he should probably join Avenue D and leave being filthy to the professionals. Like Banks.
[4]
Katherine St Asaph: Don’t listen to this as a Scissor Sisters song; your spangled dreams will remain dashed. Listen to this as the Scissor Sisters remix of “212,” slick as midnight, determined as 1 a.m. and slumped as the rest. Jake Shears raps like he’s an Azealia fanboy. He probably is.
[8]
Pete Baran: I am not convinced there is a whole here but I do like a lot of the individual bits. It is odd to think that the Scissor Sister bits feel treated like they were a piece of found MOR from the seventies, and the reshaping it via a Video Game cabinet doesn’t always work. Azealia also doesn’t do enough to give me a sense of what her SOUND OF 2012 will be. But it’s a good enough start.
[6]
Anthony Easton: Sleazy, greasy, and sexy in that feel-bad-about-it-the-next-morning kind of way — exactly what the Sisters have been trying to do all along. Plus, I continue to be well pleased by Banks’ whiplash move between singing and hip hop. Also has a fantastic chorus.
[9]
Alex Ostroff: The chorus isn’t as infectious as the glorious Night Work, but “Shady Love” would work fine if they just let Azealia take care of the verses. Jake Shears rapping about boobies, booty-touching and nip-slips feels infinitely less exciting, transgressive or interesting than Ms. Banks rapping about anything. [N.B.: “Krystal Pepsy” is what would happen if you determined your drag queen name via your drug and soft drink of choice, rendering me Mary Jane Racinette.]
[6]
Doug Robertson: It’s been a while since I cared about the Scissor Sisters, what with them having pretty much ceased to care themselves, but this reinvigoration of their sound reminds me why I was excited about them in the first place. It’s not as fresh as they want it to be — indeed, it’s almost an I-Spy book of what sort of sounds are currently exciting the hipsters — but it’s their retro/disco edge intermingled with all the everything else that’s going on that gives this a point, both for the single itself and for their ongoing existence. Well done, everyone, well done.
[7]
Michaela Drapes: I kept waiting (and waiting and waiting) for this one to grow on me, to catch me on any one of its innumerable hooks. But I can’t seem to be able to shake the feeling that this track is a slapdash DJ tool, rather than a proper single. (Heck, there’s enough material here for whole EP of four or five songs, even!) Which is to say, everything about “Shady Love” seems unfinished and yet oddly overstuffed, as if it needed some serious editing, but no one wanted to chop anything out. So, you know, they’ll just leave that to whomever’s on the decks instead. Disappointingly sloppy, that.
[4]
Jer Fairall: Phoned-in sleaze, a laughable M.I.A. impression, the “thanks but no thanks” of a chorus that recalls Republica, of all things, and shout-outs to Madonna and Obama that only serve to highlight just how elderly the whole thing sounds.
[3]