Scissor Sisters: Invisible Light

There’s something about Scissor Sisters that feels like permission. Not permission in the sense of being allowed—more like watching someone live so completely in their own excess that you stop wondering if you’re supposed to. The theatricality, the sex, the refusal to make it palatable. Jake Shears doesn’t care if you think it’s too much. That energy carries through everything they touch.

I came to them late, which is typical of me. By the time I paid attention they’d already done their best work, already shifted and regrouped and become something different. But that’s how it works—you find what moves you when you find it, not when it’s new. What matters is that the songs are still there, still infectious in that way that dance music at its best is infectious. Not infectious like a cold. Infectious like standing in a room full of people and feeling less alone because the music won’t let you be.

Invisible Light carries that same uncompromising energy. There’s no apology in it. Just the sound of people who know exactly what they want to say and say it anyway, knowing most people won’t get it and not particularly concerned. That’s the kind of art I’ve always gravitated toward—the stuff that doesn’t have time to convince you.