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Shooting Out Sparks
May. 15th, 2007 07:50 amI'm enjoying my current kick of putting up something every morning, even just a couple videos.
So I've never really paid too much attention to the band Sparks (the brothers Ron and Russell Mael). I liked the "Cool Places" single in 1983, but that may have had as much to do with the presence of {sigh} Jane Wiedlin as the song. I somewhat bought into the "more quirky than good or interesting" line that seemed to be the journalistic summary of their work in the USA, and there's plenty of other things to listen to.
But Berit and I had been hearing "Metaphor" (aka "Chicks Dig Metaphors") from their newest album Hello, Young Lovers on WFMU over and over again for a while now, and we liked it a lot, and I finally decided to get the album, and, while I was at it, a "Best of Sparks" collection.
Both purchases were well worth it (though, admittedly, I found them cheap).
Yes, quirky, and yes, sometimes at the expense of being good or interesting -- but still just as often a superior brand of art-pop, funny, odd, and hooky-catchy. Don't know if I need to go beyond these two albums just yet, but I'll be keeping my ears open.
Here's the "Cool Places" video from 1983 (when I thought Jane Wiedlin was just the CUTEST thing and that Ron Mael - the non-singing brother - looked so COOL!):
And 23 years later, here's Ron and Russell still out to "Dick Around":
And HERE's a link to another (excellent) recent video from the same animator, Shaw Petronio, who did the one immediately above, for "Perfume." (oops - forgot to include the link there when I first posted - sorry bout that)
Enjoy.
So I've never really paid too much attention to the band Sparks (the brothers Ron and Russell Mael). I liked the "Cool Places" single in 1983, but that may have had as much to do with the presence of {sigh} Jane Wiedlin as the song. I somewhat bought into the "more quirky than good or interesting" line that seemed to be the journalistic summary of their work in the USA, and there's plenty of other things to listen to.
But Berit and I had been hearing "Metaphor" (aka "Chicks Dig Metaphors") from their newest album Hello, Young Lovers on WFMU over and over again for a while now, and we liked it a lot, and I finally decided to get the album, and, while I was at it, a "Best of Sparks" collection.
Both purchases were well worth it (though, admittedly, I found them cheap).
Yes, quirky, and yes, sometimes at the expense of being good or interesting -- but still just as often a superior brand of art-pop, funny, odd, and hooky-catchy. Don't know if I need to go beyond these two albums just yet, but I'll be keeping my ears open.
Here's the "Cool Places" video from 1983 (when I thought Jane Wiedlin was just the CUTEST thing and that Ron Mael - the non-singing brother - looked so COOL!):
And 23 years later, here's Ron and Russell still out to "Dick Around":
And HERE's a link to another (excellent) recent video from the same animator, Shaw Petronio, who did the one immediately above, for "Perfume." (oops - forgot to include the link there when I first posted - sorry bout that)
Enjoy.
