Sparks are an American band who formed in 1970 in Los Angeles and are notably still active today. The band officially consists of only brothers Ron (keyboards, songwriting, questionable mustache) and Russell Mael (vocals), but over the years they have accumulated a large amount of ex-members and session musicians. The duo's style is characterized by their whimsically over-the-top songwriting, their funny, witty lyrics, Russell's falsetto, and a quirky stage presence which plays with the contrast between Russell's hyperactive Face of the Band attitude and Ron's deliberately stiff and taciturn stage persona.After releasing two albums that were largely ignored in their homeland, the duo decided to try their luck on the other side of the Atlantic and relocated to England. It was there that they reached their popular (and arguably most creative) peak in 1974 with third album Kimono My House, a fusion of glam-rock and dance-pop sensibilities with wry and clever stories, which spawned a surprise number two hit single with their Signature Song "This Town Ain't Big Enough For the Both Of Us". They followed it up with Propaganda the same year and Indiscreet the next, which were essentially a continuation of the Kimono sound (to continued success), after which they returned to the United States and fell into obscurity starting with Big Beat. During the next few decades they would go on to make over a dozen albums in which they would flirt with many different genres, including disco with No. 1 In Heaven (produced by Giorgio Moroder) and an uninspired New Wave Music/synthpop period in the '80s which is generally agreed upon as awful (Angst In My Pants, Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat, Interior Design).Although they did a brief resurgences of popularity (especially in Europe) with 1979's No. 1 in Heaven, 1980's Terminal Jive (which made them One Hit Wonders in France) and 1994's Europop-tastic Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins, it wasn't until the release of the New Sound AlbumLil' Beethoven in 2002, of whose genre is indescribable but can best be explained as a combination of house repetition, Baroque Pop and straight-up classical music, which (ahem) sparked renewed interest in the duo and led to much acclaim in both the UK and the US, paving the way for a productive decade that resulted in the rock-oriented follow-ups, Hello Young Lovers and Exotic Creatures of the Deep. Their latest work, The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman, is a musical Ron and Russell composed for a Swedish radio station.Despite being criminally overlooked during much of their career, the duo are very highly regarded (Morrissey, They Might Be Giants, Nirvana, Björk, Ween, Sonic Youth, The Ramones, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Def Leppard, New Order, Faith No More, The Pixies and Franz Ferdinand are some of their most notable admirers, and Jonathan Ross calls them "possibly the greatest band on the planet") and their music was crucial to the development of Punk Rock, New Wave and Synth Pop.Discography:
Sparks / Halfnelson (1971)
A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing (1972)
Kimono My House (1974)
Propaganda (1974)
Indiscreet (1975)
Big Beat (1976)
Introducing Sparks (1977)
No. 1 In Heaven (1979)
Terminal Jive (1980)
Whomp That Sucker (1981)
Angst in My Pants (1982)
In Outer Space (1983)
Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat (1984)
Music That You Can Dance To (1986)
Interior Design (1988)
Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins (1994)
Plagiarism (a Cover Album/tribute album of their older songs, 1997)
Balls (2000)
Lil' Beethoven (2002)
Hello Young Lovers (2006)
Exotic Creatures Of The Deep (2008)
The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman (2009)
This band provides examples of:
A Day in the Limelight: The narrator of "When Do I Get To Sing "My Way"" is desperately waiting for his.
Always Someone Better: "Lighten Up Morrissey" is about a guy whose crush isn't interested in him, because he's not enough like Morrissey.
Ambiguous Gender: Russell in the early days. The operatic falsetto didn't help.
Anti Christmas Song: "Thank God it's Not Christmas", combined with Anti-Love Song: a man dreads the Christmas season because he has to spend it with his dull wife.
Anti-Love Song: "Throw Her Away (And Get a New One)", "Confusion", "Eaten by the Monster of Love". Pulling Rabbits out of a Hat and Hello Young Lovers alternate between this and Silly Love Songs. See also Anti Christmas Song above.
Broken Record: The majority of Lil' Beethoven is built around stock phrases and repetition, but arguably the crowning example of this would have to be "My Baby's Taking Me Home", in which the title is recited approximately 104 times with the only other lyrics being a spoken monologue delivered by Russell.
The Cameo: The Go Gos' Jane Wiedlin duets with Russell on two songs in In Outer Space.
Director Tsui Hark appears in, fittingly enough, "Tsui Hark".
Cover Album: Plagiarism, a cover album of their own songs. It was recorded after the success of Gratuitous Sax and Senseless Violins to introduce their new German fanbase to their older music. It didn't exactly work.
"Baby, Baby (Can I Invade Your Country)" is half original, half cover of "The Star Spangled Banner".
Cross Dresser: Ron in the album art for Angst in My Pants and the video for "I Predict".
Deconstruction: Lil' Beethoven is this to the Pop music format.
Demoted to Extra: Kimono My House-era bassist Martin Gordon was annoyed when he saw the final album pressing, as on the back the planned band photo had been replaced with a large colour photo of the Mael brothers, with him, guitarist Adrian Fisher and drummer Norman "Dinky" Diamond being relegated to smaller, black-and-white portraits.
Also "Ugly Guys with Beautiful Girls" and "Dick Around"
Incest Is Relative: "Fa La Fa Lee" is sung from the point-of-view of a man who has sex with his sister.
Intercourse with You: A lot: "Amateur Hour" (specifically about how Their First Time will always be underwhelming, but eventually "amateur hour" will be over), "Under the Table with Her", "Sextown U.S.A.", "All You Ever Think About is Sex".
"Tryouts for the Human Race" takes it a step further: it's from the point of view of the sperm.
Kubrick Stare: Ron loves to do this whenever there's a camera nearby.
Long Title: Gratuitous Sax alone has "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing", "Frankly, Scarlett, I Don't Give a Damn", "I Thought I Told You to Wait in the Car", "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil"
"As I Sit to Play the Organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral"
"I Can't Believe That You Would Fall for All the Crap in This Song"
Minimalistic Cover Art: Kimono My House is a picture of two geisha girls against a green background. (One of them, Michi Hirota, later contributed Spoken Word In Music to David Bowie's "It's No Game".) The cover also didn't have text in its first pressing.
Introducing Sparks is just a bust shot of Russell or Ron, depending on which side you're looking at, against a blue background with the album title. Said bust shots are combined in this page's image above.
Balls is just a colored circle on a gradient background.
Lil' Beethoven is mostly text except for a miniature Beethoven cartoon in the corner.
Mr. Seahorse: "(She Got Me) Pregnant", if you take the song's title literally. It's really about a guy dealing with the emotional consequences of a one-night stand.
New Wave: Whomp that Sucker through Interior Design alongside their developing Synth Pop style. See Synth Pop below.
One of Us: The long layoff between Interior Design and Gratuituous Sax and Senseless Violins was because the band spent their time trying to unsuccessfully get a film adaptation of Mai The Psychic Girl off the ground. The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman was later inspired by their experience with Development Hell.
Ron made two spoken-word appearances ("Under the Table with Her" and "Senseless Violins") before finally making his singing debut in The Seduction of Ingmar Burgman as a cab driver and a tour guide. Nearly 40 years after the band formed.
Record Producer: Have DIY-produced the majority of their records starting with In Outer Space. Prior, they made use of Todd Rundgren (Sparks), Muff Winwood (Kimono My House, Propaganda), Tony Visconti (Indiscreet), Rupert Holmes and Jeffrey Lesser (Big Beat), Terry Powell (Introducing Sparks), Giorgio Moroder (No. 1 In Heaven, Terminal Jivenote along with Harold Faltermeyer), and Moroder associate Mack (Whomp That Sucker, Angst in My Pants).
Riches To Rags: The protagonist of "Dick Around" goes through this after his wife leaves him.
Self-Titled Album: Their first album, which was also self-titled when the band were called Halfnelson.
"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" namechecks the eponymous saxophonist as well as quoting the famous musical line "And the hills are alive with The Sound of Music".
"Lighten Up, Morrissey" is actually a tribute to the eponymous singer. The song's narrator is being brushed off by his girlfriend because Morrissey is so much cooler than him.
Sibling Team: The band's first incarnation consisted of two of these, with the Maels being complemented by Jim and Earle Mankey on bass and guitar.
Sibling Yin-Yang: Deliberately played up by flamboyant frontman Russell and stodgy, button-down keyboardist Ron.
Silly Love Songs: Fairly often: "Wonder Girl", "When I'm With You", "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing". Pulling Rabbits out of a Hat and Hello Young Lovers alternates between this and Anti Love Songs.
Stage Mom: "Talent Is An Asset", to Albert Einstein, no less.
Something Something Leonard Bernstein: On the 70s material, Russell Mael frequently sings in such an odd falsetto that it can often be hard to discern any lines other than the title of the song. A good example is "Here In Heaven".
The Stoic: Ron Mael is the absolute king of this trope. A good example is this video
Synth Pop: Began with No. 1 in Heaven and ran through the 80s and 90s until Balls in 2000. Aside from the former album, which is generally well regarded and was heavily influential to Electronic Music, fans have a Love It or Hate It attitude towards these records.
Take That: "Suburban Homeboy" is a mockery of privileged youths who try to act street, set to classy, orchestral backing.
"What Are All These Bands So Angry About?" is thought to be a swip at the mainstream popularity of angsty Nu Metal bands in the late '90s-early 2000s.
Vocal Range Exceeded: Famously averted. Russell has roughly a 2.5 octave vocal range.
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