Sparks Appreciation & Album by Album thread

Sparks first promo video (and last until 1977, I believe) and the only surviving clip to feature Maritn Gordon, who was ousted before they toured. Fittingly, he gets to shoot Russell Mael in this film.

 

Uh oh. You asked for it

-----

Whoops, here's a late AWITC review.

(Again, this is about my personal take on these. I wouldn't exactly use these for footnotes.)

-----

So here we find ourselves at Sparks’ official sophomore effort, and this one is ACTUALLY named A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing (some people called the first, unreleased album by that name, for some unknown reason.)

Don’t let the blurred, murky cover fool you: the sun actually is shining this time, and the monster glaring at you from under the bed...well...it’s Burt. Sorry. You kinda look like Ernie in the dark.

So now that everybody’s cleared the cobwebs out of their heads, let’s see what we’ve got here. The guys on the cover still look disinterested, but this time they’re more deadpan than disturbing. The guy with the mustache is there, but he seems less like Hitler and more like a misguided Charlie Chaplin fan. Guess nobody had the heart to tell him.

Speaking of Chaplin, that barrelhouse piano that made Fletcher Honorama so disturbing? It’s still here, but it’s more silent comedy than Satanic. The mustache guy plays it, his name is Ron Mael, and he’s sorry if he scared you. Ron’s also responsible for the majority of the songwriting, and y’know what? He’s hilarious.

The Chaplin/slapstick thing runs deep. Ron’s piano in Underground takes the stereotypical silent comedy template and beats you over the head with it like a big foam rubber mallet. The siren at the end of Whippings and Apologies (naughty, Ron!) isn’t a cause for real concern: it’s the Keystone Cops trying to catch a bank robber, but none of those dumbasses know where the crook went (guys! Come on! He’s right there, on the other side of that trash can!) Here Comes Bob, a song about causing car wrecks as a way of making friends, is set to the kind of snooty classical music that you’d hear at a high society party. One about to be crashed by The Three Stooges.

And...wait. Are you serious? They cover DO REI MI??? For ****’s Sake...

It’s not just mustache guy that looks different in the morning light. The catatonic non-man from the debut’s cover? That’s Ron’s brother Russell. Russell looks like he might be a little sheepish about scaring you too, so please accept the hilariously goofy suit he’s wearing on the cover by way of apology.

Like his brother, Russell likes his comedy silly. His falsetto is all over the place in Beaver O’Lindy, a song with a shout-along chorus that would fit right in on an episode of The Mickey Mouse Club if it weren’t a bit risqué (I’m the girl in your head, but the boy in your bed?)

Even when it gets dark, it doesn’t get dark. Moon Over Kentucky might seem disturbing at first, but look closer: yes, it appears to be about hating life, people, and everything else. It also appears to be about an overly dramatic 14 year old who’s pissed off at his mom. Besides, the ominous music is less about doom, and more about some bald dude letting you know that he’s about to kill da wabbit. ****, even a song with a title like Nothing is Sacred turns out to be about having so much leisure time that you don’t know what to do with it.

The thing that’s so great about it all, though, is that the guys on the cover have merged into a flexible, and above all powerful, unit. Russell’s dramatic flourishes in The Louvre might be lighthearted, but the band behind him goes from having tea in the garden to riding the carousel to a muscular 4/4 rock beat as if it was the most natural thing in the world. (As an aside, Russell’s vocals bear more than a passing resemblance to Bryan Ferry’s gloriously histrionic freakout at the end of A Song for Europe, and not just because they’re both in French. A Song for Europe is on Roxy Music’s Stranded, which was recorded six or seven months months after A Woofer in Tweeter’s Clothing’s release. Just sayin’.)

Don’t get too attached to that band, though. The Brothers Mael gave grown tired of their California home, and have decided to dump said band and try their luck in the UK. Which, as it turns out, was the right move.

And now that I think of it, Ron and Russell DO kinda remind me of Bert and Ernie.

 

...more to the point, here's Kimono My House.

-----

i·ro·ny1 (ˈīrənē/) - noun

1 - A state of affairs or an event that seems deliberately contrary to what one expects and is often amusing as a result.
plural noun: ironies
"the irony is that I thought he could help me"
synonyms: paradox, incongruity, incongruousness
"the irony of the situation"

2 - The act of two brothers making dark, claustrophobic music in sunny California, then making bright, extroverted music in dreary England.
plural noun: ironies
“the irony is that they finally blossomed in a place without sunlight.”

-----

Yes, Sparks have an album called Kimono My House. Don’t feel bad if you’ve never heard of it: sometimes even rabid Sparks fans are unaware of its existence. That’s a shame, as it’s one of their best.

While nobody can quite explain why this album didn’t take England by storm, there are a few theories: one such theory is that, without the band’s name on the cover, people assumed it was traditional Japanese music. Another is that the album’s glam rock sound was out of step with the English music scene, which at the time was more interested in subtle, down-to-Earth artists like Sweet, Gary Glitter and David Bowie.

Whatever the reason, Sparks fans would do well to hunt down a copy. The first, This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us, should have been a hit: the song fades in slowly, with Russell’s breathless delivery hovering over Ron’s gentle keyboards. The keyboards move closer, Russell’s voice builds in urgency, stopping only for a gunshot that takes off like a rocket, followed by a delirious, ecstatic kick that rips doors off their hinges, announcing The Brothers Mael to their newly adopted country with a blinding, euphoric roar.

Or rather, it should have. Unfortunately, it failed to rocket up the UK charts to #2 on May the 26th, 1974, only to be kept from the #1 spot by UK the song Sugar Baby Love by The Rubettes. The second single Amateur Hour, an ode to the awkwardness of puberty, was also a triumph. With its glorious, ascending riff arrogantly thumbing its nose at the more traditional rock ’n roll guitar of the time, it managed to not make it to #7 later that year.

The album suffered a similar fate. Kimono My House merely failed to peak at the #4 spot on June the 16th, 1974, just above Rick Wakeman’s Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and just below Bad Company’s Debut, The Carpenter’s Greatest Hits, and David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs. All told, a grand total of 22 weeks in the UK top 40, with 11 of those weeks in the top 10, was yet another failure.

Insult was added to injury when Kimono My House’s cover art (with two attractive, exotic looking women on a green background) was accused of shamelessly copying the cover of Roxy Music’s Country Life, although some critics did applaud Sparks’ ability to rip off the cover art of an album that wouldn’t be released for another six months.

Ironically, it was this psychic ability to plagiarize things that hadn’t happened yet that makes Kimono My House such a great album. Derivative of the future as they may be, Here in Heaven, Thank God it’s Not Christmas, and especially Equator steal the best parts of what Queen would do a year and a half later with their breakthrough album A Night at the Opera. That said, it is admittedly rather bold that Sparks would pilfer Queen’s future triumphs in such a blatant manner, considering the fact that Queen opened for Sparks on the Kimono My House tour.

Fortunately Sparks moved on, bloody but unbowed, into a career that continues to this day. The failure of Kimono My House has relegated it to relative obscurity, although the Mael Brothers have been known to perform This Town Isn’t Big Enough for Both of Us live, usually when they discover that there are Sparks fans in their audience. Hopefully, the future from which Kimono My House so shamelessly stole from will be kinder than it’s not-at-all-massively-influential past.

 

I guess I'm a little late to the party, but here are some of my thoughts thus far:

Sparks and A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing - I find these to be very similar albums and tend to lump them together. They are definitely the oldest music that I have in my collection (the next oldest would be 1975). The sound quality on the albums are both decidedly low-fi demo, and despite the fact that it was intentional I feel that it hinders the impact. The muted, tinny sounding drums limit the enjoyment of some of the greatness therein. I don't love the albums but I do like a good portion of them.

Sparks - Some of the material is up there with the best at that time (Saccarin and the war), others are just really good (Fa La Fa Lee, Roger, High C), and some is extremely dated and tedious (Fletcher Honorama, Slowboat). All in all, not a bad debut.

Woofer - This is a stronger album, and I think Morrissey took a little debut Smiths LP from this one (The Smiths' 'Miserable Lie' sounds like the sequel to my favorite 'Nothing is Sacred'), other highlights are the quirky 'Beaver O Lindy', 'Here Comes Bob', 'Underground' and 'Whippings and Apologies'.
I'm not too bothered by the fact that all CD pressings have 3 songs sped up because I simply changed the speed/pitch to the original length of the songs, so I can now listen to them as the originally were meant to be heard.

Scott

 

Kimono My House:
This is most people's favorite Sparks album, and with good reason. It really is brilliant. I had become familiar with This Town through the cover Siouxsie did in 1987. I LOVED the Siouxsie version but stayed away from the Sparks version assuming, with it being from 1974, it would sound like Abba or something else from the time. Around the mid-90's, I purchased a bunch of Sparks albums out of curiosity, and remember being stunned the first time I heard the original This Town. It was sooooo much better than the Banshees version! I loved the way the drumming would kick in, whereas the Banshees version was just a constant repetitive drum pattern throughout.

Kimono sounded like nothing I was expecting, and I was hooked by other classics like 'Amateur Hour' and 'Here in Heaven'. I even learned to love the insanity that is 'Equator'. But not everything is a total success. 'In My Family' and 'Falling in love with myself again' sound very dated and 'Talent is an Asset' is only occasionally listenable. When I started buying CD's, the first was the Profile collection, and I got the hear how good the B sides 'Barbecutie' and 'Lost and Found' were. This album is definitely a highlight in their career, and I lump it with Propaganda and Indiscreet as the sacred trilogy.

Scott

 

"Kimono my House" is the first Sparks album that really clicked for me, though it is surpassed, in my opinion, by the two albums that followed it. This is really the album where Ron perfects his style of songwriting, and as well as being stronger than the previous efforts both lyrically and melodically, the musicianship is also vastly superior. We lose the compressed sound and weak drumming of the previous albums, and it is replaced with a something much wider and more dynamic.

The first seven tracks of "Kimono" are some of the best music ever recorded, and I would like to put forth "Hasta Manana, Monsieur" and "Talent Is an Asset" as my personal favourites. Sadly, the album loses very much steam afterwards, with "In my Family" and "Complaints" being rather tiring. "Equator", though, is excellent.

I am puzzled as to why this album in particular seems to be uniformly regarded as the unquestionable highlight of the Sparks catalogue, as there are at least two others I would say are even better. Perhaps, like with "Sgt. Pepper", the revelation it must have provided for those who were there makes it seem better to some people? I have found that some younger people I have converted into Sparks fans in particular seem to prefer either "Propaganda", "Indiscreet", or "Lil' Beethoven." It's still an essential album, though, and if you only were to hear one Sparks album, you could do far worse than this.

 

It's the one with the hit, basically. It's most people's introduction, and that tends to be the one that really sinks its hooks in.

I've been posting these album by album reviews of their catalog as we go, but I actually finished the catalog a couple of weeks ago (for another site.) It wasn't until I had gone through every release that I realized that as an album, KMH isn't their best by a decent margin. It's ONE of their best, of course, but Lil' Beethoven and Indiscreet are stronger, more consistent, and more inventive.

It feels weird to call KMH "overrated," since it's one of the best albums of the 70s. But it's not the clear winner in Sparks' catalog by any means.

 

Fond memories of this album cause it was my first ever album. Before I could only afford the occasional single.
I heard "This town" for the first time on FM Radio Luxembourg. I had no idea what that was, but it sounded so different and strange. What would this "female opera singer" look like ?
When I saw the album for the first time in a shop I was confused by those two geishas, they could not have been the source of that voice.
And even the back of the cover offered no clue, so I decided for me that "Russel Mael" must be a woman in a suit.......forgive me, I was very young then.
A little later I read in some magazine about them and when I liked "Amateur Hour" even more, I finally decided to buy that strange album. It was no love on first hearing, "Equator" was not my cup of tea at all and it needed repeated listening to get into the other tracks. But having no other album I had no choice and listened - until I liked it. And when "Propaganda" was released, I got that for christmas and that went to my heart very fast. Those were the days.

 

This thread is fizzling fast. Shame...

 

I suppose the Sparks audience is too small for anything else to be expected. Sad, though. The reason the "Your favourite Sparks album" poll has more replies is probably because there are many who simply have heard "Kimono."

 

Hey, hold on. I'm not done yet. I wondered if I should post much on this album since it is so intertwined with what was going on in my life when new. Maybe this will be interesting to some - maybe not.

This album was released one month before I graduated high school. I was anticipating it and bought it upon release. I remember bringing it home and playing it the first time. I didn't know what to expect, but I was not expecting this!

Kimono My House had intensity!

To set the scene:
This was a big part the soundtrack of my "post-high school, pre-steady girlfriend, pre-demanding job" summer. And I had the energy that comes with being 17 years of age. My whole life seemed to be ahead of me and things were working out well, so far. Due to an agressive insurance adjustment agent trying to take advantage of an unusual 16 year old (me) I ended up with a brand new 1973 BMW 2002* (my dream car). I had additional Blauplunkt speakers (back when they were still made in West Germany) and a Teac cassette deck that weighed over 7 lbs, IIRC, installed. Sounded great to me.

I was used to going for (fast) drives with my two best friends, listening to music (loud) and doing things that we could not do back in our parents houses. Three albums that were in heavy rotation for these drives were David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust, Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure and Sparks - Kimono My House.

Each time I put Kimono My House in the player and the sound started ramping up on This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us endorphines started kicking in. And they did not let up for the duration of the album. I cannot put into words how great I felt and how much fun I had while listening to this album - so I'll leave it at that.

Lately I've been listening to Sparks - In the Swing compilation in my car. It starts with This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us and as the sound ramps up at the beginning of the song, I still get a bit of that endorphine rush - 40 years later.

Sparks - In the Swing is a great sounding compilation, btw. Best digital Sparks that I have heard. And the remixed Big Boy sounds much better to me than the original mix, even as heard on the original US vinyl.



Amazon is selling this "New Old Stock" still Made in West Germany - cheap.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000740C/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=


* For those not familiar with this car, some context:
I read an interview with car collector and late night TV host Jay Leno. He was asked "Of all of your cars in your collection, which one is your favorite car to drive?" He replied "My BMW 2002tii - for fun to drive."

(I later got a 2002tii and ended up preferring the 2002. Of all of the cars I've driven, these were the most fun for me also.)

 

I've been kind of slow when it comes to Sparks, I actually had never heard of them until maybe mid 90's, I had a New Order live boot vinyl with a cover of "When I'm With You", years of searching for the writers lead me to this band, so far I just have a couple thrift finds "Introducing" Red promo Allen press and a US "No.1" Allen and Chris B Cut, I love the sense of humor these guys have

 

The 'Kimono' singles were stunning and great door-openers to the band. They nearly lost me with 'Equator' though! Total rubbish and I still don't play that. The next two albums absolutely floored me. VERY interested to hear other people's views on those two very fine pieces of work. The difference between these and KMH? The addition of the very marvellous Ian Hampton on bass has to be a major factor.

 

Kimono is my favourite Sparks disc. I'm glad I got to see them back in the day.

 

I love Kimono My House, which was the first Sparks album I owned. I don't regard it as their best (Propaganda gets my vote), but I think its status as their best-known album is inevitable, given the success of This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us.

 

Love Kimono. It's like an aural antidepressant, and never fails to cheer me up. Amateur Hour has such an infectious hook, and the lyrics crack me up. I first heard Sparks when I borrowed my older sister's 7" Never Turn You Back On Mother Earth and became a big fan (I actually prefer the B side Alabamy Right). Kimono is one of my all time favourite album covers too.

 

The Mael Intuition compilation was my introduction to Sparks, and I've been in love ever since. I can't think of a more underrated band. Well, aside from Xtc of course. Hope they tour the states with FF this fall.

 

Before we continue with the Island
era , i would like to say how much i
love the two Bearsville albums ,
wonderful stuff !

 

Propaganda (1974)

Propaganda
At Home, At Work, At Play
Reinforcements
BC
Thanks But No Thanks
Don't Leave Me Alone With Her
Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth
Something For The Girl With Everything
Achoo
Who Don't Like Kids
Bon Voyage

non lp :

Alabamy Right
Marry Me

 

I concur, in fact the first Two are my fave Sparks LPs

 

Propaganda is my favourite Sparks album and was my show of choice for the album-by-album performances in London. It's unequivocally a Desert (ahem) Island Disc for me. Bizarrely, my first (sort of) introduction to it was Martin Gore's cover version of Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth, which I heard prior to Sparks' own recording. I think it hangs together better than Kimono My House. There's a consistency to Propaganda that is quite remarkable, not least since it came out in the same calendar year as its predecessor. The quality of the material and the performances are first rate. Plus, the design is superb. Also, the cover is great, but I always thought there was something really sinister (in a good way) about the rear photo, with the other members of the band. Something for the music fan with everything.