So they’re fusing Gilbert & Sullivan lyrics, four-part harmony, keyboard loops and, uh, metal guitar solos. Sparks’ guitarist for a while now has been Dean Menta, ex-Faith No More, who hasn’t changed his ways one damn bit: his jagged bits of metal sound exactly as anachronistic in one context as another (and given that he’s worked with arch-weirdo Mike Patton, I doubt Menta is sweating the Maels one bit).
Sometimes the joke is a simple one while the music is complicated: “(She Got Me) Pregnant,” which is exactly what it sounds like, or “I’ve Never Been High,” whose gothic swells and overwrought choruses make the mock-tragedy a madrigal of sorts. Sparks aren’t a joke: they’re a walking referendum on the current state of pop music, where it is and isn’t going. Here, the Maels are much peppier after a one-night stand: “Thank you God, for something rare as this/what must have been a holy night of bliss.” Har har, though it all falls apart once she leaves: “Does ‘dohsvedanya’ really mean good morning?” Nothing here comes close to that kind of narrative complexity, which is OK.
“Good Morning” picks up where the last album’s closer, “As I Sit Down to Play the Organ at the Notre Dame Cathedral,” left off: in that surprisingly epic song, a church organist expressed his anger that his exceptional playing was overshadowed by everyone coming to genuflect to God instead. I’m not even qualified to weigh in on that.) A mock-ethereal intro declares “I don’t care if you love me/just so you like me,” tackling the problem head-on: I’ve never met anyone who did anything but despise Sparks from the moment I put them on, and Sparks seem acutely aware that they only have cultists, not moderate fans. (And yes, I know that Queen allegedly ripped Sparks off whole-sale. I’d like to stress the music more now: jokes get old, but just because the Maels are funny (unless, again, you think they’re just annoying) doesn’t mean they’re not making some of the most compelling, sophisticated music around.įor what it’s worth, Exotic Creatures is a return to the kind of songwriting that involves verses and choruses, and hence presumably a little easier to stomach Sparks no longer sounds like Philip Glass arranging a hysterical Queen tribute band. And it’s the fact that they’re brothers who’ve worked together for 36 years now that’s creepiest of all: they’re siblings who seemingly turned their back on the world a long time ago, preferring to concentrate on their own insular jokes and obsessions.” Their lyrics are almost uniformly snide and dismissive, particularly towards women, who the Mael brothers seem to regard solely as succubi.
“They seem to hate the very medium they’re working in, having been engaged this entire millennium in a project to actively annoy any remaining rockists by working pretty much solely without a drum kit or any of the conventional staples of a rock band, concentrating instead on tape loops, repetition, and operatic multi-tracked vocals. Two years ago, when Hello Young Lovers came out, my prose was much more excitable: “I honestly believe that Sparks are the most hateful band in pop music today,” I wrote (and sorry to quote myself, but this is better than any intro I’ve been working on for a few days now).
I’ve been waving the flag for Sparks a good five years now, which is a good way to annoy people very quickly, even people who tolerate seemingly more-abrasive acts like the Fiery Furnaces. Songs can be emotions, but they can also just be musical ideas worked out, or they can be satire, or they can be jokes on how long an inane pun can be developed. Flash-forward to “Strange Animal,” the second song on Sparks’ 21st album, Exotic Creatures Of The Deep, where auto-critique leads the brothers Mael (Russell and Ron) to spit back one of their most common criticisms (lots of snark, not much depth) unadulterated: “This song lacks a heart … an emotional core/Isn’t that what songs are for?” Answer: not necessarily. The charge was that Scream lacks emotion, to which he reasonably responded that sarcasm does have an emotional component. I remember a friend telling me once about how, in some dreadful class where they purport to teach how to structure scripts properly or something equally proscriptive, he had to defend Scream.
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