Sparks Archives - Backseat Mafia

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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