"Playing your game, verging on the humane, I get a little romance, when I get the chance to."
Similar to Gang of Four both in sharp-witted tone and stark, scratchy danceability, Au Pairs were easily one of the most politically confrontational bands of the Post-Punk era. What really set this band apart, however, was its passionately feminist politics and lead singer Lesley Wood, one of the first openly lesbian musicians of the rock-era, whose vocals were a force to be reckoned with. Au Pairs' debut, Playing with a Different Sex, is their enduring masterpiece, and takes no prisoners in its whip-smart evisceration of bourgeois notions of sexuality and gender. For example, "We're so Cool" is sung from the perspective of a woman trying halfheartedly to convince herself that "things are cool" with her emotionally vacant lover. Here, Wood pours on the irony while the band locks into a groove that sounds something like Post-Punk funk. While Au Pairs' follow-up LP, Sense and Sensuality, isn't as consistently great as their debut, the sound is more textured due to the addition of synths and occasional horns into the mix, and Wood's vocals show more range, almost taking on a smokey soul-like quality at times. As with Gang of Four, some will find the lyrical content too didactic in places, but musically, Post-Punk doesn't get much better than this.
