With this new album, a musical Annette directed by Leo Carax, starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard and a documentary about their career made by Edgar Wright, both due out later in the year, Sparks are having another moment in the spotlight. After near on fifty years in the music business you'd be rightly wondering what they have left to say. On the evidence of A Steady Drip Drip Drip there are plenty of innovative ideas left in these septuagenarians yet.
The lively lyrical and musical driving force is, as ever, Ron Mael. It would be a mistake though to assume the vocal expertise of Russell is all he contributes. How Team Mael works has always been a mysterious two headed beast. Their lives outside of their pop personas are closely guarded, do they even have partners or children? Not that we need to know, its just interesting that in our Instagram world there's still not a sniff of anything other than their brotherhood.
Like Hippopotamus, A Steady Drip Drip Drip utilises a song portfolio approach similar to Indiscreet, my favourite Sparks album from their Island Records period. But whilst there are knowing nods to their back catalogue, none of this is self-parody, it feels fresh and musically alive. Sparks remain at the top of their own particularly unique game as acute observers of the ridiculous side of human behaviour, and how recent social media technological developments, in a sense, only change the setting for them.
Of the many many delights on this album I'll focus on three to give a sense of the peachy perfections it contains. Ron Mael has always been able to write an effortlessly sparse song, a simple premise, simply executed, of which 'Lawnmower' is a classic example. Its about a chap who is so obsessed with mowing his lawn that his girlfriend leaves him.
'The neighbors look in awe at my lawnmower
With jealous and awe at my lawnmower
I'll never loan it out, not my lawnmower
La-la-la, la-la-la
La-la-la, la-la-la
You're pushin' on your lawnmower, lawnmower
Your lawn will be a showstopper, showstopper
Your lawn will be a jaw-dropper, jaw-dropper
La-la-la, la-la-la
La-la-la, la-la-la
What makes the prospect of the upcoming film Annette so exciting is that Ron Mael has been writing show tunes in a pop vein for years. There are a couple here 'Self-effacing' and a beautifully tongue in cheek song, about a woman called Onomato Pia who communicates without using words.
Onomato Pia came from Rome, had a head of angel hair
Couldn’t speak a word of English, no one cared
Onomatopia flowed out everywhere
Pia had a real communication flair
Every little sigh was oh so epic
Every little gasp for air
Every little yawn a yawn beyond compare
Onomato Pia’s gift was oh so rare
Pia had a real communication flair
There are a couple of songs with expletives in, which is unusual for Sparks, but used appropriately. The self explanatory 'Please don't fuck up my world' is one, the other 'I Phone' has the catchy chorus line of 'Put your fucking I Phone down and listen to me'.
Musically, they continue to be adventurous in their music arrangements, pushing at the envelope of what popular music can encompass, such as in the strident 'Sainthood is not in your future' The wildest example here is 'Stravinsky's Only Hit' a song about how Stravinsky was convinced to make one concession to pop success that he subsequently regrets.
Stravinsky’s only hit
He toned it down a bit
He didn’t write the words, that was my job
He hated minor thirds
Thought them too absurd
I recommended them to make the girls sob
Adulation, how he loved it
All that action, Igor was digging it and
Party, party, rum and women
Party, party, a long way from Rite O’ Spring.
A Steady Drip Drip Drip gets an enthusiastic thumbs up from me.
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