Rank the Albums - Sparks

Watching this back I have to say something about how brilliant their album covers are.
The text on the last frame is a little out of line and there's a stray 'n', I've just learned after spending ages rendering it and watching and approving the rest of the video. It looked fine on the editor, but too small to see the n. Just take it. Thannks.
rank the albums intro • INTRO to Rank the Albums

[@fanmael5636]

Nice video, certainly an interesting view to some of the albums. Don't necessarily subscribe to your point of view but it's interesting to hear your opinion. One correction: the demo album from 1969 was never called "A Woofer In Tweeter's Clothing". For more info about Sparks, you might want to check out fan mael.

[@csurname]

I've seen your site, and I've seen a 1969/70 interview or review where they call it that, I think! The interview also described the intended cover (with a surfer, for which there are a lot of unofficial mockups). You'd know better than me on that but I'll have to find my source. It might have just been a photo of a music magazine - if it wasn't you who'd pointed this out I'd look for it at fanmael first!

[@fanmael5636]

@@csurname Thanks for your swift reaction. The source you refer to is mentioned and discussed in the chapter which focusses on the demo album. It also contains photos of the Maels showing the original package of that album.

[@csurname]

Ok, found my source, but the blog post it's in seems to discourage my interpretation. I'll Pin your comment for the correction, and I'm referring to the long column "AHEAD OF THEIR TIME?" pictured on this post, which also discusses the misnaming rumour. maelsblog.blogspot.com/2016/07/halfnelson-demo-album-1969.html?m=1

[@fanmael5636]

@@csurname Didn't know my original blog was still online. This is the first version of my chapter on that album. The one on the current site is more complete and corrected where necessary.

[@csurname]

Agh, I only included that line because I thought I was correcting a misunderstanding with a timely source, but turns out I'm perpetuating it. I'm disappointed in the sons of Doris Day for misleading us.

[@Kirara]

dunno how i'd rank sparks albums. it feels like i'm ranking my own children and they all look like ron mael.

[@csurname]

Girl Is Crying is a funny one; kinda glad I'm not compelled to give it a placement, especially mentioning it straight after Drip, which does literally nothing wrong but doesn't really charm me. Because Crying is a further follow-down. Russell's taking this decade's break from high notes, and we have the right to pout. Songs are small scenes overextended, likeable if not very (by Sparks standards) memorable. The sincere songs show how plain the composition is without punchlines. Better than its vibe neighbour Balls, without really holding much profile. I think something being the most recent release can really distort appraisal in either/any direction, but I've not budged on Drip. Edit: I think Crying goes below In Outer Space. Is that cruel?

[@Andy.Moore.AndysTreasureTrove]

Great show! Some of the best thinking/writing I’ve seen about Sparks. I was totally in sync with you. Thank you so much!

[@grahamrogers3345]

Tony Visconti was producer of most of the T.Rex albums. Hardly worth ranking their albums as in my view they are ALL BRILLIANT! So yes I love Marc Bolan and T.Rex.

[@scottray1265]

LOVED sparks up to Big Beat.....fell off a cliff with Introducing.....loved #1 in Heaven and then never really went back......but getting introduced to them by Don Kirshner when I was 14 I have to say the run from Kimono to Big Beat is one of best 4 albums runs ever

[@wee-weeble49]

Completely agree that Propaganda isn't a patch on Kimono. Don't get the love for Propaganda at all, it would probably just about get into my top 10, then again, maybe it wouldn't.

[@annabackman3028]

About 'Annette', which I HIGHLY recommend everyone to see, TWICE. The second time is essential if you thought that you didn't get it the first time, if the first half was too slow and boring. The movie is a little bit like two acts, and in the first you are given a lot of information that doesn't seem important, perhaps odd, but nothing to store in your mind for another forty-five minutes or so. You should. I can honestly say I missed a handful of details the first time. In fact, important later on or not, I still noticed a few new when I last, for the sixth time, watched it on Blu-ray at home. The marionett puppet was Carax's idea to solve the problems with directing toddlers, when the team couldn't find what they were looking for anyway. Not the first intention, even though I believe Carax had had the thought of it passing through his mind. In Ron's and Russell's version they originally planned on to tour with, Rebecca Sjöwall as Ann, the mother, they of course would have a doll Annette, so the idea wasn't so farfetched. Initially Carax's team found a couple of girls, but as the shooting of the movie was postponed a number of times, those girls became too old. The only time Annette is portrayed by a real girl is in the last scene of the actual story. What is interesting, is how perfect that became symbolically! The "doll-girl", which had been a sort of symbol, something to show, for "the perfect family" that never existed, and something to profit from. Like a circus horse, never only a child that was loved just because she was their daughter, to love and cherish. When Annette, played by Devyn McDowell, at the time only five years old, enters the room where her father Henry McHenry (Adam Driver) is, she is carrying her favorite toy, a monkey that her father had given to her when she was just a baby. Here, remember that Henry is presented as "Ape of God" when performs his standup comedy shows, the monkey is like a substitute for the very often absent father. The scene, around 5 minutes, is filmed in one take, the main part is an amazing duet between Driver and McDowell. Driver is fabulous. Carax has said that the girl was a "pain in the butt" to direct 😅, but the result is outstanding. She nailed it somehow, whether it was exactly what Carax was looking for or not. The duet is Annette pouring bitterness, turning it to forgiveness, and about to forget about both her dead mother and her father. Telling her father "It's sad, but it's true, you have nothing love". When Annette leaves, carried away, on the chair where she sat, lies the doll, she isn't somebody's puppet anymore. On the floor the monkey, she doesn't need a substitute for her father now. So, he has "nothing to love". When you have watched it a couple of times the double layers, the symbolism, and with that also the how and why the characters behave like they do. However, there is a scene where Ann, played by Marion Cotillard, is presenting her background to the movie audience, which I think could have been done differently. As it turned out, it feels desperate. An attempt to both explain Ann, and give Cotillard more camera time. I didn't think she showed especially much neither talent nor engagement the first time I saw 'Annette', but those details... Yeah, she definitely makes the best of what she is given. I had preferred three more minutes of the the movie, if Ann had had a chance to tell more about herself to Henry, and to 'The Accompanist', Simon Helberg. The firstly pretending to listen, the latter listening, but unable to help her, at the same time as that also had given Helberg a few minutes more, he did excellent when he got the chance. The conducting scene, when he has the camera, the movie audience, spinning around him is eminent. Anyway, Leos Carax won "Best Director' in Cannes Film Festival, Luminièrs Award and César Awards, not me😂. And what about the Mael brothers? They got a few things to put on a troffé shelf as well. 'Best Music' in the Luminièrs Awards and 'Best Original Music' in the César Awards. Not too bad for a couple of guys who wrote their first film music sometime around 1975, but that movie was never made, though the great Jacques Tati's health declined, and his death in 1982. The film 'Confusion' was never made, but two versions of a song made for it, at least inspired of it, are released on the album Big Beat. On the original 1976 album a little longer version appears, and on the '21st Century Edition' (2006), among the bonus material, is an earlier recording called 'Intrusion/Confusion'. And.. The sad story Sparks spent a couple of years to write and record in the late eighties - early nineties: 'Mai, the Psychic Girl" based on a Japanese manga. Tim Burton was excited over the project, bought the rights, and.. went on making 'Edward Scissorhands'. 'Mai' has been a rollercoaster of "now!" and "no" since then. The radio musical 'Ingmar Bergman', initiated by the Sveriges Radio (SR), the public radio of Sweden, was the next hope for a real movie. Now, PERHAPS, an animated movie may come to life. Joseph Wallace, who made the colorful video to 'Edit Piaf (said it better than me)', and the animated parts in the documentary 'The Sparks Brothers', maybe, perhaps..? 🤞

[@paulsnape9971]

Sparks did a brilliant and better version of THE Beatles. I wanna hold your hand. I actually saw Sparks at the Victoria Hall Hanley Stoke on Trent Sunday 17th Nov 1974. Cheapest ticket was 60p. Two weeks previous also saw Queen there. Thurs. 31 Oct 1974. Cheapest ticket was 80p. Those were the good old days. And I remember them well.

[@grahamrogers3345]

Great reviews

[@iconicshrubbery]

From one fan to another... 2:05 You are Wrong, I'm afraid. 3:27 You are Wrong, again. 8:42 Trivial ("deliberately.. cartoonish") , I agree! 10:00 -11:30 Disagree, you're too keen to tar these three with your anti - 80s brush. Post Balls: I think the last 15 years is the Maels' decadence, to quote you, 16:43 "they come up with a title and fit the music to that". '.. Bergman is an exceptional, Sparksian endeavour. Annette, high-brow and inaccessible. 22:24 You got the conclusion right, anyway. (I'm a 50 - year Sparks fan so more classically minded, I suppose. But each to their own)

[@csurname]

No need to be afraid!

[@auteur55]

Drip grew on me and overshadows hippopotamus now for me. Took a bit of time. Also glad to see CD’s instead of vinyl 😆

[@paulsnape9971]

Giorgio Moroder also had a big impact on producing and working with Sparks (Tryouts for the Human Race Lp) and Donna Summer. They both had the same style of a classical vibrant opening .

[@user-ys3qq6rf6z]

great work but second album is better than first GIRL FROM GERMANY greetings from poland try polish funny jazz masterpiece from 70s NAMYSLOWSKI WINOBRANIE