Sparks
Album Review: Sparks are ‘MAD!’ and their enduring legacy is safe.
In the realm of art-pop, few acts have maintained the level of inventive audacity that Sparks have exhibited over their five-decade career. With their 28th studio album, MAD!, the Mael brothers—Ron and Russell—continue to defy expectations, offering a record that is as unpredictable as it is exhilarating. ‘MAD!’ unfolds like a sonic kaleidoscope, blending genres …
Track: The iconic Sparks release new single ‘Drowned In A Sea of Tears’ ahead of new album ‘MAD!’.
The inscrutable and enigmatic brothers Ron and Russell Mael return as the iconic Sparks with their new single ‘Drowned in A Sea of Tears’. The release precedes their new album ‘MAD!’ due out in May. The track is poignantly beautiful with a motorik thrum and yearning vocals. Dappling instrumentation underlies the searing melodies, typically enigmatic …
LIVE REVIEW: Sparks – Ancienne Belgique, Brussels 22/04/2022
After over twenty albums and fifty years in the business, the Mael brothers have weathered everything from adulation to ridicule and indifference, yet resolutely ploughed their own idiosyncratic furrow. Long ago realising that trying to play to the fickle tastes of the public was a risky and ultimately futile endeavour, they simply did their uniquely …
See: Sparks release new video for ‘Left Out In The Cold’
Taken from their recent long player ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’, the bothers Mael are back again with a new video for album favourite ‘Left out in the cold’. The band are also being celebrated, or at least documented in a new film ‘The Sparks Brothers’ by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Baby Driver). …
See: Sparks’ ‘The Existential Threat’ video
The video for Sparks’ The Existential Threat, a highlight from their stellar 2020 album, was released the same day as physical copies of A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip were made available. The video’s congruously surreal, absurdist conception was masterminded by Cyriak, an animator famous for a magnificently made Run the Jewels video amongst many other …
TRACK: SPARKS – ONE FOR THE AGES
Legendary pop-pioneers Sparks who are releasing their 24th studio album ‘A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip’ on May 15th Via BMG have just dropped the video for their 4th tease of what is to come from the new album. Titled One For The Ages is keyboard heavy as expected from this duo with the trademark falsetto from …
Not Forgotten: Sparks – Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins
Sparks were in a weird position in the mid 90s. Once one of the most subversively inspirational acts, by the time Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins was released, The Mael Brothers has been overtaken both commercially and artistically by some of the very acts that they had inspired, most obviously Pet Shop Boys. From it’s sphincter tighteningly bad …
A Beginners Guide to Sparks
Sparks aren’t just any old pop band. Formed by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, the former child models were just too weird for the macho chest-beating alpha male loving American rock scene of the 70s, Sparks have always enjoyed far greater success in Europe. Following some tentative steps as Halfnelson, the brothers would form Sparks …
Not Forgotten: Sparks – No.1 in Heaven
Career reinventions don’t come much more well executed than Sparks’ recently reissued 1979 album, No.1 in Heaven. While brothers Ronald and Russell Mael had found an enthusiastic audience for their arch intelligent pop in the UK in the mid 70s, reaching a commercial peak with the game-changing single ”This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the …
Album Review: Sparks – Hippopotamus
When Sparks roared back to relevance with 2002‘s Lil’ Beethoven, it was treated as a glorious return to form. How long that form would last was another matter. Was it a one off, or the start of a more sustained period of creative success? 2006’s Hello Young Lovers very much confirmed that the previous album’s …