Sparks

Sparks, brothers Ron and Russell Mael, make their opening gambit for 2025 with the release of “Do Things My Own Way.” A teaser for their 28th studio album, MAD!, due this year on new label home Transgressive Records, the single also functions as something of a manifesto for the Maels – Sparks are a band who have always, always done things their own way.

“Our mantra since 1972, amplified in 2025.” – Sparks

While further details about the album remain under wraps, fans can look forward to the MAD! Tour. Having wowed audiences and critics alike on their 2023 tour – including sold out shows at London’s Royal Albert Hall (two) and Sydney Opera House, a hometown triumph at Hollywood Bowl, and a headlines-stealing set at Glastonbury Festival – Sparks will be returning to the live stage this June kicking off with the Japanese, UK and European legs of their world tour.

Most acts, by the time they’ve been making music together across seven different decades, would have slowed to a crawl, creakily playing the oldies on the heritage circuit and releasing nothing more modern than the occasional Greatest Hits collection.

Sparks aren’t most acts. And, if anything, their rate of productivity has sped up in recent years: since the millennium the duo have released eight new studio albums, a radio opera (The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman), a side-project (Franz Ferdinand collaboration, FFS), a live album, a film musical (2021’s Annette, which won a Best Director award for Leos Carax and the Best Original Score at the César Awards for the Maels), toured the world numerous times, and been the subject of The Sparks Brothers, an acclaimed documentary by Edgar Wright. Their laurels remain resoundingly unrested-upon.

Ron Mael (keyboards) and his younger brother Russell (vocals) were born and raised in Los Angeles, and first recorded under the name Urban Renewal Project and subsequently Halfnelson, before settling on the name Sparks in 1972. Despite being mentored and produced by Todd Rundgren and signed by Bob Dylan’s manager Albert Grossman, American audiences initially proved unreceptive to Sparks’ unique aesthetic, and their breakthrough, came instead after they relocated to London with a new backing band, scoring a huge hit in 1974 with the cinematic, staccato single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us,” and unleashing full-scale Sparksmania in the UK.

In the decades since, one thing that has never faltered is their commitment to artistic innovation. They’ve moved through numerous genres and phases, including Art-Glam (1974’s mega-selling Kimono My House), Neo-Charleston (1975’s Tony Visconti-produced Indiscreet), electronic disco (1979’s Giorgio Moroder collaboration No.1 In Heaven, which essentially invented the synth duo), synthpop (1994’s glorious Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins) and sampler opera (2002’s career-rebooting Lil’ Beethoven). The only common threads, throughout each era, are the exquisite wit of Ron’s lyrics and the complexity of his arrangements, and the heavenly falsetto of Russell’s voice.

It’s perhaps a result of this restlessness, and their refusal to double down on a safe bet by following the easy commercial path, that Sparks’ popularity has been so unpredictable, both geographically and temporally. In 1980, for example, they topped the French charts with the sublime “When I’m With You.” In 1994 the poignant “When Do I Get To Sing My Way?” reached the German Top 10. And their homeland finally caught on in the Eighties, when they were mistaken by many Americans for New Wave novices. These flurries of success were usually fleeting. While their devoted cult following never deserted them, Sparks have spent long periods outside the mainstream.

But the influence of “the greatest band you’ve never heard of,” or “your favourite band’s favourite band,” has been recognised by successive generations of artists from Joy Division to Duran Duran to Depeche Mode to Bjork to Beck and beyond. Their influence on music cannot be overstated – as super-producer Jack Antonoff declared “all pop music is re-arranged Sparks.”

Once more Top 10 regulars, with studio albums Hippopotamus (2017) A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip (2020),  and The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte (2023) all reaching No.7 in the UK and receiving global acclaim, the lauded career-spanning documentary film The Sparks Brothers, directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, Baby Driver) and released in 2021, brought an awareness of Sparks to parts they previously hadn’t reached. 

Continuing their love for film as an art form, Ron and Russell have written a new musical epic, titled X-Crucior, that is in development and will be directed by John Woo.