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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Aaron Milenski" <amilenski@hotmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: Sparks! |
| Date | Sat, 02 Dec 2006 22:53:31 -0500 |
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I am a huge Sparks fan and probably own more albums by them
than any other artist.
I'll start by saying the video of them playing "Something For The
Girl With Everything" back in 1974 is the funniest thing on YouTube.
Just great stuff.
Here's my take on their best work:
My personal favorite is A WOOFER IN TWEETER'S CLOTHING, which
is just plain weird..full of hooks and oddness. Weird but really catchy
too. the debut is similar but not quite as good.
Next best is probably KIMONO MY HOUSE. By this album, their style
changed quite a bit--more poppy and straighforward, but still
veyr weird and wonderful lyrically. The following PROPOGANDA is
nearly as good and also essential.
I like but don't love most of the albums in the next period--all of them
have some great songs but are much more inconsistent than WOOFER,
KIMONO and PROPAGANDA.
In the 80s they started maing synth-pop, and WHOMP THAT SUCKER
is excellent, as good as INDISCREET, which was the album after
PROPAGANDA (it is good--but was defnitely a step down from the
previous three.) Like INDISCREET, about half of it is only OK, but the
other half is absolutely ace. WHOMP was followed by ANGST IN MY PANTS,
which I think is the best synth-pop album ever (the best album in a genre
I hate!!), all of the promise of WHOMP fulfilled.
The next batch of albums were similar to those in the late 70s...all
had moments but overall none were up with their best work.
A lot of the 90s stuff is very techy, which I don't like, but still there
are cool songs on every album. The two most recent albums, which
replace the tech sound for a weird kind of symphonic rock, with
catchy but very repetitive melodies, are really great---both are up
there, in my opinion, with stuff like PROPAGANDA and ANGST, if only
a step down from WOOFER and KIMONO. Bear in mind, though, they
are quite different.
Also--you need to see them live or on video. They have just plain the
strangest sene of humor ever.
Anyway, I'd say to get the first 4, the two great synth-pop ones, and
the two most recent ones...and then you can start thinking about others
if you love all those.
In approximate order of preference:
WOOFER
KIMONO
ANGST
PROPAGANDA
LIL BEETHOVEN
SPARKS
HELLO YOUNG LOVERS
WHOMP THAT SUCKER
etc...
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