Hercules and Love Affair "Hercules and Love Affair" [2008]

Just how much improvement did anyone expect from fiercely "out" groups' influence on popular music? Well, the petri dish of gayness had its heyday in the 2000s with singers like Rufus Wainwright, groups like Scissor Sisters and dance bands like Hercules and Love Affair, resulting in a profound thud -- as in finally stepping out of the closet, tripping on a pair of high heels and landing smack on your face. Singer Antony Hegarty sings so indefinably homosexually that he makes Alison Moyet sound like Lemmy. Nomi Ruiz tries to sex things up in a more "traditional" sense herself, but there's only so much one babe from Brooklyn can do in the face of such anti-heteroism. Perhaps (one day) redeemingly, neither Hegarty nor Ruiz are considered permanent members of Hercules and Love Affair -- maybe one day DJ Andy Butler will gravitate to biker rock, though the odds are admittedly very slim -- especially since Moby tried something similar 10 years previously with horrendous results. Queer and present here are all the trappings of bad electronica: simplistic keyboard phrasings, seemingly endless repetition and far too many nods to Fire Island disco, allowing for the disturbingly vivid image of Nile Rodgers in a mesh tanktop. It's almost as if the 70s were so long ago we're under the impression they embarrassed nobody. How far from the truth are we allowing ourselves to go?