Sparkstacular!

As you know, I'm a huge fan of Sparks--why wouldn't I be a fan of America's Greatest Rock Band? I say that and you think I'm being facetious, but Sparks is one of those bands of whom it seems difficult to be a casual fan--most of us quickly fall into obsession. I certainly did, and to commemorate the release this week of their twenty-second album (twenty-third if you count the unreleased first album), I wanted to do something special on this blog.

Given that we have the internets, I probably don't need to say much by way of introduction. Look them up on youtube. Basically, Sparks were Halfnelson for their first two albums. Then, they became Sparks, under which name they've gone through many stylistic iterations. The band basically consists of brothers Ron and Russell Mael--Ron writes extremely idiosyncratic lyrics which Russell sings, often in an acquired-taste falsetto powerful enough to reduce zombies to dust. Russell's persona is loose and goofy; Ron's is standing very still and scowling a lot (and sometimes tapdancing).

So how about this: I am going to review every Sparks album, including a handful of bootlegs/rarities. I don't claim that my reviews are super-insightful, but there are a lot of them. So let's plunge in, shall we? KERPOW!