Jake Shears
Last Man Dancing
MUTE
Consummate show-person, disco acolyte, flywheel falsetto singer, and longtime Scissor Sister Jake Shears returns to the dancefloor after his rock-oriented solo debut of 2018 just in time to take his rightful crown next to mirrorball newbies Beyoncé, Drake, and Dua Lipa. Because Shears’ renaissance is organic, rather than being a chapter in a book of poses or necessary stops along the ways and means of trend consciousness, it’s instead as deep as any bloodline. With Last Man Dancing, Shears’ DNA is specked with glitter flakes and stardust.
From the immensely hummable (and giddily self-mocking) “Really Big Deal” and the strutting, wronged-relationship glam-boogie of the title track, to the relentlessly rhythmic, endlessly epiphanistic Andrea True/Vicki Sue Robison/Cory Daye tribute “Too Much Music” which opens the record, Shears’ sophomore solo album proves to be a literal and figurative unstoppable force.
As a lyricist, Shears plays off the angel/devil powers behind real joy and realer pain without isolating the emotions from each other. That’s most apparent as, in several cases, Shears offers friends and collaborative vocalists Kylie Minogue (on “Voices”), Big Freedia (“Doses”), and even Jane Fonda (“Radio Eyes”) chances to act in a surprisingly dramatic play that isn’t always as cheerful, punchy, and sexy as the music that surrounds it.
