A song about refusing to dance became the reason millions did exactly that. Scissor Sisters opened their second album with a track built on that contradiction, and by late September 2006 the single was sitting at the top of the British charts. The album that followed, Ta-Dah, arrived on September 15, 2006 via Polydor Records, twenty years before this September's retrospective. It was the group's own production, a self-made follow-up to a debut that had already turned them into unlikely stars.
A song about refusing to dance became the reason millions did exactly that.
Guest stars from rock and glam
The New York glam-pop outfit had help this time. Elton John, Carlos Alomar, and Paul Williams all contributed to the sessions, lending the record a pedigree that stretched from piano-driven arena rock to Bowie's rhythm sections. Scissor Sisters produced the twelve tracks themselves, keeping creative control while absorbing those influences. The result was alternative rock with sequins on it, a sound that felt equally at home in a dive bar or a stadium.
The British rollout started three days after the American release. Ta-Dah came out in the UK on September 18, 2006, with I Don't Feel Like Dancin' already priming radio and retail. That single hit number one in Britain between late September and early October, giving the band their first chart-topping moment. The timing was deliberate: Polydor knew the song was the album's sharpest weapon.
US debut and critical reaction
America responded more cautiously. Ta-Dah debuted at number 19 on the Billboard 200, moving 42,000 copies in its first week. Those numbers were respectable but not explosive, especially for a band whose debut had felt like a word-of-mouth phenomenon. Critics largely sided with the album, praising its energy and wit, though the commercial gap between the two markets was already widening.
The singles kept coming. Land of a Thousand Words reached number 19 in Britain in December 2006, a ballad that showed the band could slow down without losing their bite. She's My Man followed in early March 2007, landing at 29. By the time Kiss You Off arrived on May 28, the chart momentum had cooled; it posted the weakest showing of the album's singles.
Doctor Who second life
Then a television show changed the math. I Can't Decide, the third track on Ta-Dah, started climbing the British chart on digital downloads alone, eventually reaching number 64. The reason was Doctor Who. The song appeared in the episode 'Last of the Time Lords,' first broadcast on BBC on June 23, 2007. That episode was the thirteenth of the show's third season, and its villainous context gave the track a second life.
The album's sequencing tells its own story. I Don't Feel Like Dancin' opens with four minutes and forty-eight seconds of pure propulsion. She's My Man stretches to five minutes thirty-one seconds, letting the groove breathe. I Can't Decide is a compact two minutes forty-six seconds, sharp enough to work as a scene-stealer. Lights runs three minutes thirty-five seconds, and Land of a Thousand Words clocks in at three minutes fifty seconds.
There was also Intermission, a two-minute thirty-seven-second breather placed mid-record, a theatrical touch that fit the band's cabaret instincts. A limited edition added a bonus disc with a song called She, extending the album's runtime for collectors and completists. The standard twelve-track version remained the core document, the one most listeners carried home in 2006.
Twenty years on, Ta-Dah reads as a snapshot of a band at peak confidence, pulling in legends and still calling every shot themselves. The album that started with a refusal to dance ended up soundtracking a Time Lord's darkest hour. That's the arc: from dancefloor defiance to sci-fi villainy, all within the same twelve tracks.