{"id":1520,"date":"2025-05-26T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-26T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/sparks-go-mad-on-latest-album\/"},"modified":"2025-05-26T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-05-26T15:00:00","slug":"sparks-go-mad-on-latest-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/sparks-go-mad-on-latest-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Sparks Go MAD! On Latest Album"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/SPARKS-2025-PRESS-SHOT-3-CREDIT-MUNACHI-OSEGBU-e1747923285816.jpg\" width=\"\" height=\"\" alt=\"Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks (Credit: Munachi Osegbu)\"><\/figure>\n<p>Over the course of nearly 30 albums and 54 years, Russell and Ron Mael have had plenty of time to perfect the DNA of a Sparks song. During those multiple decades of songcraft, the Maels have seen tastes change, styles come and go, and despite weathering periods both fecund and fallow in popularity, the septuagenarian brothers have entered their final act riding high.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>New record <em>MAD! <\/em>is another triumph for the Maels, featuring more of the synth-pop and art rock that has defined much of their 21<sup>st<\/sup> century output. Their popularity has been on the rise ever since Edgar Wright\u2019s 2021 documentary <em>The Sparks Brothers <\/em>ushered in a new generation of fans and now <em>MAD! <\/em>arrives almost exactly two years after <em>The Girl is Crying in Her Latte <\/em>dropped, which charted #7 in the U.K.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More from Spin:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/the-gift-that-keeps-on-giving-exploring-xmal-deutschlands-4ad-era\/\">The Gift That Keeps on Giving: Exploring Xmal Deutschland\u2019s 4AD Era<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/chelsea-wolfes-gothic-heart\/\">Chelsea Wolfe\u2019s Gothic Heart<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<li>\n\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2025\/05\/stereolab-disorients-the-dream-of-the-90s\/\">Stereolab Disorients the Dream of the \u201890s<\/a>\n\t\t<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Does <em>MAD! <\/em>feature the darkly humorous lyrics that are hallmarks of Ron\u2019s writing? Check out doozies like \u201c<em>Hit me harder\/ Can\u2019t wake up\/ Hit me like Tyson\/ Still it\u2019s not enough.<\/em>\u201d Are there more insidious, circular songs that lodge themselves in your head? Just listen to \u201cA Little Bit of Light Banter\u201d one time and you will be singing it for days.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/Sparks_MAD_AlbumArtwork.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-463874\" srcset=\"https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/Sparks_MAD_AlbumArtwork.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/Sparks_MAD_AlbumArtwork-340x340.jpg 340w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/Sparks_MAD_AlbumArtwork-768x768.jpg 768w, https:\/\/static.spin.com\/files\/2025\/04\/Sparks_MAD_AlbumArtwork-498x498.jpg 498w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><\/figure>\n<p><em>MAD! <\/em>plays like a sampler of what Sparks does best. Ron, who turns 80 in August, has always been a master of writing songs about cast-off lovers and unrequited romance. (Just check out \u201cTits\u201d from <em>Indiscreet <\/em>(1975).) This time around, \u201cJanSport Backpack\u201d is from the perspective of a man who is so used to seeing his girlfriend walk away, he can only view her as a complete entity with that <em>titular<\/em> accoutrement strapped on her back. Meanwhile, the frenetic \u201cI-405 Rules\u201d is a classically madcap ode to a highway, while the plodding \u201cA Long Red Light\u201d is a complaint against\u2026being stuck at a red traffic light.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Despite being 76 years old, Russell\u2019s voice is still honey-sweet; his heavenly falsetto matched by new, lower registers on some tracks here. And Ron\u2019s synths can range from stately to nutty to sounding like a harpsichord over the span of just one track. While the synths recede a bit on the guitar-heavy lead single \u201cDo Things My Own Way,\u201d Ron does heavy lifting on songs like \u201cRunning Up the Tab at the Hotel for the Fab,\u201d which was likely inspired by Anna Delvey, a woman who posed as a European heiress and infiltrated New York\u2019s socialite scene.<\/p>\n<p>While many of the songs on <em>MAD! <\/em>are archly funny, tracks like \u201cDrowned in a Sea of Tears,\u201d which explores the perils of suppressing emotion, feel quite sincere for Russell and Ron Mael. Meanwhile, the album-closing \u201cLord Have Mercy\u201d is a love song, plain and simple, with a singalong chorus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGonna do things my own way,\u201d Russell intones as the album opens. Hasn\u2019t Sparks always done things their own way? <em>MAD! <\/em>wouldn\u2019t be half as great otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.spin.com\/2021\/07\/the-greatest-rock-stars-of-all-time\/?utm_source=yahoo&amp;utm_medium=bottomlink&amp;utm_campaign=yahoolink\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the course of nearly 30 albums and 54 years, Russell and Ron Mael have had plenty of time to perfect the DNA of a Sparks song. During those multiple&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[117,24,88,786],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-new-music","category-pushly","category-reviews","category-sparks-mad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1520"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1520\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1520"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1520"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1520"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}