Official
'Originally formed in 1970 by Los Angeles brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks' music is often accompanied by intelligent, sophisticated, and acerbic lyrics, and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified in the contrast between Russell's wide-eyed hyperactive frontman antics and Ron's sedentary scowling. Starting with their masterwork, Lil' Beethoven in 2001, the band began performing their albums in their entirety. 2008 saw the band perform all 21 of their albums in successive nights at the Islington Academy and Shepherd's Bush Empire in London.
'Though the band's long career has seen them successfully pioneer many different musical genres; including glam pop, power pop, electronic dance music, mainstream pop and most recently chamber pop, Sparks have created their own unique musical universe. While achieving chart success in various countries around the world including United Kingdom, Germany, France, and the United States, they have enjoyed a cult following since their first releases. Sparks have been highly influential on the development of popular music, in particular on the late 1970s scene, when in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (and Telex subsequently), they reinvented themselves as an electronic pop duo, and abandoned the traditional rock band line up.
'Their frequently changing styles and visual presentations have kept the band at the forefront of modern, artful pop music. They are held in esteem by such peers as Morrissey, Kurt Cobain, Franz Ferdinand, Arcade Fire, MGMT, Sonic Youth, Ramones, Bjork, Depeche Mode, New Order, The Pixies, Ween, Suede, New Pornographers, Morrissey, and Radiohead, who all cite Sparks as a major influence.
'On August 14, 2009, the band premièred the radio musical The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, commissioned by the Swedish public radio (SR) and featuring the Mael brothers themselves and Swedish actors Elin Klinga and Jonas Malmsjö, both of whom worked with Bergman in his lifetime. The musical, partly in English, partly in Swedish, tells the story of Bergman's supposed relocation to Hollywood after his breakthrough with Smiles of a Summer Night (1956), and the surreal and discomforting encounter with the movie capital. The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman is currently being adapted as a feature film by Canadian avant-garde director Guy Maddin.'
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Personal
'Early on we thought that what we were doing was something unique, and that the term rock wasn't essential to what we were doing. It was just we had a special way or viewpoint of pop music and music in general. So we always had the kind of aspiration not to be going down the straight and narrow path of pop music. We're concerned with creating something that is less specific and maybe harder to figure out where it's coming from. It's something we are proud of, the fact of being able to create music that doesn't really fit neatly into any specific genre.' -- Russell Mael
Sparks is indisputably one of my two or three favorite bands and makers of music in general of all time. They have an excellent official website, including streamed chunks of all of their videos, mp3s, games, galleries, shops, a members only fan club, and a worthy recounting of their 35 plus years of existence.
Five favorites
'The Rhythm Thief' (2002)
'At Home At Work At Play' (1974; performed live in 2009)
'Music That You Can Dance To' (1986)
'Happy Hunting Ground' (1975; performed live in 2006)
'Mickey Mouse' (1982)
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There are certain countries in the world where Sparks are appropriately considered to be major artists. One of these countries is France, where they've had a number of huge hit songs and albums, and one of its many cultishly loved pop stars who owe Sparks a huge debt is Lio. Ron and Russell Mael rewarded her devotion by writing the lyrics for the English language version of her first album.
Les Rita Mitsouko & Sparks 'Singing in the Shower' (1987)
Lio 'Le Banana Split' (1984; lyrics & music Sparks)
Gran Popo Football Club 'La Poesie cést fini' (2000; music & lyrics Sparks)
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Sparks w/ fan Desi Arnaz
'Igor Stravinsky was always such a big fan of Sparks and our use of tonality. Especially in the later albums.' -- Russell Mael
Hardcore Sparks fans tend to have high IQs, poor or overly developed social skills, and suffer from bouts of bitterness and agony that the band has never been sufficiently appreciated by mainstream audiences and critics. Typical in some way of these fans is this guy.
'The Story of Little Russ'
'Crazy Sparks Girls'
'My Brother and Me', a fan fiction trailer
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Jacques Tati w/ Sparks
'We were supposed to be in Tati's film Confusion, a story of two American TV studio employees brought to a rural French TV company to help them out with some American technical expertise and input into how TV really is done. Unfortunately due to Tati's declining health and ultimate death, the film didn't get made. If we had to pick the greatest disappointment of our entire career, all thirty-seven years, with all its ups and downs, it would be not doing the film with Jacques Tati.' -- Ron Mael
Just before he died, the incredibly great French film director Jacques Tati was in talks to collaborate on a film with Sparks tentatively entitled Confusion, a project so theoretically perfect and mouthwatering that its demise is still painful. Tati may be dead, but he has a wonderful website.
Reconstruction of Tati's 'Villa Arpel'
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'Sometimes people tell us we could have a career in litigation. We could sue Queen for copying my vocal style on Bohemian Rhapsody and The Pet Shop Boys for, oh ... almost everything. They say that so we don't get the law-suit against us, but I have to agree. We once thought about pursuing a class action against the entire New Wave movement. It would be: 'Sparks versus The New Wave your honour'. All of the bands would have to answer the charges. I josh.' -- Russell Mael
In their early years, Sparks were contextualized within the Glam Rock genre where, at least in the eyes of the public and some rock critics of the day, they functioned as a kind of thinking person's Queen. But they were much more.
Sparks in Concert 1974, part 1
Sparks in Concert 1974, part 2
Sparks in Concert 1974, part 3
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'In retrospect, Ron's moustache was probably another mistake. He probably regrets it. When he did it, he was quite naive - he thought he was copying Charlie Chaplin. We went to France to do a TV show and the presenter refused to go on with us so we had to pull out. At that point he changed it to a pencil-style one. We like controversy and provocation but not in that way.' -- Russell Mael
Sparks' work and publicity have always made much of Ron Mael's Hitler-esque moustache, including this slight, somewhat diverting, amusing, flash-requiring little visual puzzle.
Ron Mael shaves his moustache
Ron Mael tap dance
Ron Mael's snowglobe collection
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'Working with Giorgio opened up new ideas for us. For one thing it showed we weren't tied to the guitar, bass and drum format and it showed you could work in other ways in a non band context. Although it was commercially fulfilling and we really liked the album, it was critically tough at the time cos people thought it was puzzling for Sparks to be doing what they perceived to be Disco. We saw it as an electronic album where the synths had replaced the aggression of guitars, and really that album was about the songs.' -- Russell Mael
In the mid-70s, Sparks coopted Euro Disco for a short time, producing the excellent and groundbreaking albums No. 1 Song in Heaven and Beat the Clock with the cooperation of disco schlockmeister Giorgio Moroder.
'The Number 1 Song in Heaven' (1979)
'Beat the Clock' (1980)
'Modesty Plays' (1982)
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'We were always more accepted in Europe than the US. Maybe, maybe it was because of the art rock side of our work, but also things are transmitted around Europe in a more centralised kind of way and things get disseminated in Europe much easier. In America it's more fragmented, there's no centralised radio to cover the whole country so it has different things.' -- Russell Mael
Sparks has never had the popular success and critical acclaim in the US that they have achieved in Europe and Asia, but they got the closest with a string of albums in the early 1980s including the great Whomp That Sucker and Angst in My Pants, and the slightly less great Sparks in Outer Space, the last of which, thanks to guest vocals by a member the then-hugely popular Go-Gos, launched their biggest American hit, the subpar (for Sparks) song and music video 'Cool Places'.
'Tips for Teens' (1981)
'Upstairs' (1981)
'I Predict' (1982)
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'Our recent music has been a reaction to everyone else's lack of adventure. Everyone else is very safe and very reflective. It's all too tame. We wanted to do an album that is for the people who like Sparks and new fans that would be jarring and genre-defying. We hope it elicits a reaction from people - even if they don't like it. We're tired of people following pop conventions and clichés. You listen to songs and after two bars you know where the song is going because it follows so many conventions.' -- Ron Mael
I defy anyone to name another musical artist or band who have been putting out records since 1970 and are doing their best work now as evidenced by 2002's brilliant Lil Beethoven and the superb more recent albums Hello Young Lovers and Exotic Creatures of the Deep (2008).
'My Baby's Taking Me Home' (2002)
'Your Call's Very Important to Us. Please Hold' (2002)
'Waterproof' (2006)
'Perfume' (2006)
'Lighten Up, Morrissey' (2008)
'Photoshop' (2008)
Sparks' 10 favorite songs
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p.s. Hey. I mentioned this in the body of the p.s. a few days ago, but I'll repeat it at the top for maximum viewing or whatever. Yury and I are going on a vacation in the middle of next week, and, as a result, the blog is going to go on a hiatus for the first time in a couple of years. The last pre-vacation post will be on this coming Wednesday. I might launch one or two postcard-like hello, trip report-style posts in which I'll try to address any accumulated comments from the road should the opportunities arise. On the 31st, I'll post the monthly Slaves Day, probably with some kind of catch-up p.s. Then the blog will return in its daily, normal form two days later on Saturday, April 2nd. So, essentially, the blog will be dormant, barring a possible, random interruptive missive or two, for about a week. ** David Ehrenstein, Too many syllables there for one of my titles, but yes. ** David, Me neither, on the sci-fi film discrepancies. I try not to see those kinds of films with Yury because he'll inevitably spend an hour plus afterwards ripping apart every instance of their illogic. ** Chilly Jay Chill, Hi, Jeff. There seems to have been a been a rash of weird Blogger behavior. Alan Warner is pretty great. I haven't read the most recent few, but I can recommend a couple of earlyish other ones: 'These Demented Lands', 'The Sopranos'. Yeah, it's the 'Writers at Work' interview series. It's serious business. I've done 6+ hours of interviews already, and there are 2 more hours today and then maybe some more in April if things are thought to be missing. ** Jjohn, Well, you're right about the more talented/under-appreciated thing, although my stuff isn't standing in other writers' way or causing that problem. The rest of what you said just isn't true at all. Bye. ** Allesfliesst, Really good to see you and hear from you, man! And your Japan report is amazing. I've read a lot about the situation there, but very little of it has managed to convey what it was and is like to be there. Anyway, yeah, thank you so much, although that's a very strange way to say it. I'm really, really glad you're okay. ** Trees, Hey, I'm pretty unconvinced by the phenomenon, I guess, but I dig the offshoots in my imagination. Will that be your first workshop with Camille? Curious to hear about that. The KK photo shoot is cool, and you've gotten me very curious about the New York poet. I'll have to check KK's Facebook status for some mystery solving. Trolls are pretty rare around here, knock on wood, so mostly I think this place is quite lucky. Hope you have a blast today. Give my love to KK and Scott T. and Dodie and whoever else. ** Wolf, Ha ha, thanks. I'm with you on the invisibility thing. Neediness be damned. ** Pisycaca, Hi, Montse! Yeah, me too, like I said. Bring on the insubstantiality. Cool you're booked. I'm counting the days. I'm okay. I hope you're a lot better than than okay. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Oh, do bar experiences count? I wonder if there's a Human Spontaneous Involuntary Magnetism phenomenon? I think I need to find 'The Holographic Paradigm'. We're trying to figure out how to employ SOMA's rules into the construction of the maze itself. But we haven't figured it out yet. ** Paul Curran, Hey. Yeah, in Amsterdam. Thought I was dying. The weakness thing, whew, I hear you. That took a while, at least for me. You probably know this, but you should probably start taking supplements to boost your immune system. Mine got totally wiped out by the measles for a couple of years, and the tiniest scratch would get massively infected, and I got cold after cold after cold. Of course, going on coke binges didn't help, I guess, ha ha. Man, all love and superpower to you. Are you able to write? ** Chris (British), Ha ha, hi. Yeah, try to get yourself as firmly as possible into prioritizing your writing and actually writing before you take that new job, if you do take it, so the job will have to find a way share space with your writing rather than the opposite. ** Shannon, Hey. As Alan said, your piece was just great! Fantastic work! All respect to you, and it would seem like you really don't need to worry about the quality of the collection you're going to put together. You have a great weekend too, pal. ** Steevee, Oh, that's awesome! The Rebecca Black thing. Everyone, courtesy of Steevee, you really owe it to yourself to check out The Illuminati Message Behind Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday'. It's killer. Thanks a lot, Steve. I'm finding my way into the new Kurt Vile album. I like it, but there's something about it that, I don't know, wards me off. Your characterization of it was real astute. 'Electric Mud' is crazy good. I definitely recommend picking that up. ** Ken Baumann, Hi, Ken! Yeah, that cannibalism article was very, very interesting indeed. Many thanks for the alert. And for your kind words, man. What can you do? I figure as long as that phmadore guy doesn't show up here, I'll be fine, ha ha. Best of the best ever weekend to you! ** _Black_Acrylic, Hi, Ben. Oh, that's a shame about the cancellation, not to mention the news about the girl. I'm sorry. Damn. Onwards and upwards and all that, as they say, and as I so often tell myself. ** Chris Cochrane, Great stuff, your musical booty. You have a fine weekend too, man. ** Sypha, Well, there are legions of amazing writers who deserve a ton more respect than they've gotten. On that point, he was right. Setting me up as a fascist doorman at the gates of success was a bit out to lunch. Give us the entry code to your new tumblr blog when you're ready please. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hi. That's cool that you can text without looking at the screen or keyboard. I still watch mine like a hawk, which is probably why I have to wear reading glasses now. The basement of the house where I grew up was filled with skyscraper piles of old issues Life Magazine and Home & Garden and magazines that don't exist anymore like Look and etc. They were good for raiding and making collages at least. The 'dark side of your sign' sounds sinister, but I guess it wasn't. Like Dark Side of the Moon or something? Actually, your day was a beautiful read. You can make the seemingly smallest thing sound lush. My day: I guess I'm over my self-consciousness, so let's see ... I started thinking about what I need to do to get ready for my vacation, but I didn't do anything yet. I got good mail: a gift of a box of my beloved Grapenuts from the kindly Patrick De Witt that I'm going to douse with milk and start eating today. A copy of Matthew Simmons' new book 'The Moon Tonight Feels My Revenge', which I'm excited to read. Some chapbooks of poetry by Jordan Castro that I'm also excited to read. A tax form that I wasn't so excited to get. While I opened the mail, I ate this great chocolate thing that's only made in Brest and was a celebratory gift from Gisele's manager re: the premiere of 'Last Spring, a Prequel'. I went food shopping. While I was in Brest, Kiddiepunk and Oscar moved in together and into a new room in the Recollets, so I went over to see them and check it out. It's nice, big, tall ceilings, looks out over the Recollets' cafe. We caught up on stuff for a while. It was nice. I forgot to ask them if they'd be into seeing 'Battle LA' with me, 'cos it just opened here. I metroed over to the Left Bank where Ira interviewed me in this hotel that used to be the famous Beat Hotel where Burroughs wrote 'Naked Lunch' and all those Beat guys like Ginsberg, Gysin, Corso, et. al. lived when they lived here. Now it's a boutique hotel, but it's pretty, and it has Beat era pictures and stuff all over the place. Anyway, I got interviewed for a couple of hours. I guess it went okay. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with him and some Swedish publishing people, but I decided to go home instead. I ate my stuff. I think I worked a little on something, I can't remember. I watched TV, but I don't remember what exactly. I got tired and went to bed. So, there you go. Now you have a whole weekend, as do I, so let's catch up re: it on Monday, yes? ** Alan Hi. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I was in a mood yesterday. It sounds like Nobuko's folks are in a relatively safe area of Japan, yes? If so, that's very good to hear. Still, it's all so stressful and worrying. So much impending possible danger and disaster. It's hard enough to deal with not even ever having been there, much less for you and her. Lots of love and strength. ** Bill, Hi, Bill. Really curious to see Scott's new work, of course, It made a big departure while he was living here, and I wonder if the departure you saw is that one or a new one. Nice weekend to you, man. ** J., Thank you a lot for that, J. How are you? ** Syreearmwellion, Hi. That is weird. Your invisibility experience. Only that one time? Any theories on why it might have happened when it did? Oh, that guy was the heckler? That's interesting. I wouldn't have pegged him for an outburst type. You never really know, though. Huh. The video was cool, man. You especially, duh. ** Misanthrope, I'm over my funk or whatever. Anyway, you're really nice, thank you. Animals are really lucky, or some of them, because they can stand still and other animals can't see them. But I guess they mostly use that power to kill, don't they? And that's not cool. Or maybe it is. Animals have their own thing. So you should be fine ... today? 'Cos your comment was from yesterday, right? With your night owl hours, it's hard for me to tell when today ends and tomorrow begins sometimes. Which is cool. Anyway, I hope it's today. ** Math, Yeah, that part of Peter's story stuck out to me too. Weird. Oh, you know, when someone hates you and don't understand why, it's really confusing. And it was confusing yesterday. But now I'm, like, whatever, I guess. Sorry for my hurt's fallout. I was just ... confused. Dude, that paragraph about your day was fucking great. Great prose, great read. Dug it big time. ** Tender prey, Hi, Marc. Oh, cool about the timeliness. Sure, Skyping sounds good. We should do it between now and Monday or so, if that works, because then I'll be going to Italy where I'll be pretty out of touch. I'm mostly around this weekend, I think, barring errands and stuff. Let me know when is good. ** Okay. I revere Sparks above most other bands and musical entities, as seems obvious, I guess, so when a silent reader recently wrote beseeching me to resurrect this post from my old blog's graveyard, I was more than happy to. I hope it fills your allotted weekend time. Thanks. I will see you on Monday.
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