Jake Shears - Last Man Dancing

If ‘Too Much Music’ were to subject itself to a TikTok-style ‘things… that just make sense’ montage, the resulting footage would feature the record’s entire twelve-song track list. Take its title alone: Jake Shears has done more than enough to date to indicate he’d never be the first to leave the dancefloor. Then, as quickly as you can muster the thought that the opening one-two is using a similar sonic palette to one famously showcased by one pint-sized Aussie pop queen, there Kylie appears, as a shimmering presence on ‘Voices’. Like one imagines a night out curated by the Scissor Sister himself, cues shift from pure pop disco to ‘80s maximalism (the almost-instrumental ‘8 Ball’ makes like an extended 12” remix). ‘Devil Came Down The Dancefloor’ sees Amber Martin marry a hook that could’ve been sampled in many a turn-of-the-millennium radio smash with a decidedly 21st Century lyric: “I won’t play the fool / For no basic man,” while Jane Fonda appears in almost robotic (and, naturally, iconic) form on ‘Radio Eyes’ as if to highlight the record’s role as sonic voyage. The sum of its parts, then, which is no bad thing.