Sparks of life
Last night’s Sparks show at UCLA Live demonstrated again that new ideas keep you young. The band (or duo: Ron and Russell Mael) has utterly changed its direction countless times in 22 albums over 39 years, resulting in what I’m starting to think is their best album of all, “Exotic Creatures of the Deep.” How passionate am I about this CD? I’ve mailed five copies to friends.
As with all acolytes to an arcane interest, Sparks fans are in it for keeps. An example: KCRW’s Michael Silverblatt, had the Maels on his show, Bookworm, last week. Here’s that interview if you’d like to listen to it. You might note that the show is about books, and the Maels don’t write books, but that didn’t stop Silverblatt, who also said that he can overlook many things in people, but if they don’t like Sparks, that’s a deal-breaker.
(And while we’re on the subject, here’s a piece from Friday’s LA Times about the band and its quirky music.)
February 22nd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Just listened to the radio interview. Knew it would be good as soon as I heard the theme song, YOU THE HUMAN ANIMAL by Cliff Edwards, better known to those of us of a certain age as the voice of Jiminy Cricket. In the interview I was struck that the Brothers Mael identify themselves as makers of Pop Music rather than Rock. Good for them. I loved that they feel any topic is grist for their lyrical mill, an attitude shared by They Might Be Giants.
Have also listened to the CD. I was struck immediatly by the Beach Boys harmonies and then the Queen overdubbed chorales. Afterwards I played a disc loaned to me by my son Justin, by Animal Collective, and heard similarities to that as well. When I played Sparks for Justin he was reminded of Ween and MGMT. One of the later songs made him think of of Danny Elfman’s movie music, which I agreed with.
Overall I like the album. It’s growing on me. The falsetto vocals were a shock first time around. Will put it into heavy rotation and discover if my newfound appreciation of Sparks continues to grow. Thanks, Lee.
February 27th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Yes, I too was immediately struck by the Van Dyke Parks-era Beach Boys sound (“Cabinessence” is one of my favorite songs; thank you kindly, sir!) and then the Queen reference.
Interestingly with regard to the latter, I dug out my Robert Christgau Record Guides and Rolling Stone Album Guides from the 1970’s and 1980’s to see how well Sparks fared. First of all — miserably! Widely hated! Online searches provided further verification. Part of why they were widely loathed — for giving spawn to Queen! Several reviews even “blame” them for Queen. So here’s what’s happened over the years: Now Sparks are critical darlings and Queen, in memorium, gets writeups like this (from Rolling Stone, no less):
“A Night at the Opera, from 1975, sounds so much smarter now than when it came out. These shameless all-time glam survivors would try anything once, and amid their messes they attained classical-kitsch pinnacles, helped invent rap music and provided celebration songs for every championship team on earth. In 1990, they were sampled by Vanilla Ice, covered by Metallica, TV-commercialed by Huffy Bicycles and explicitly acknowledged as an important inspiration by arty hardcore ensembles and funk-metal and industrial-drone bands alike.”
So: Queen were pioneers, and the guys in Sparks are geniuses, and our forebears were… wrong.
Gotta love the critics. I’m glad they have no power any more. Thank you, internet.
February 27th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
Go to Amazon and search for Rolling Stone’s 500 Best Albums. There are a lot of customer reviews about the book. I believe this title grew out of a 100 Best Albums feature that RS published. My gripe with that effort, which at least one of the on-line reviewers agreed with, is that it read more like 100 Most Influential Albums, which is a different matter. Also — and my memory may be failing me here — I think that at some point early on they revised the rankings and dropped Captain Beefheart’s TROUT MASK REPLICA from the Top 10 to somewhere far down the list, along with other changes.
Anyway, read those Amazon reviews and you’ll get an interesting picture of the issues of lists, polls, reviewers, elitism, and Rolling Stone. Even with 500 selections included there are some glaring omissions that get pointed out.