|
Sparks
Hello Young Lovers
In The Red 2006
If
you find Sparks too annoyingly goofy for your personal taste, keep
walking. But if you’re a fan of Sparks, their twentieth album,
Hello Young Lovers, is just about as complex, fun, and catchy as
anything they’ve ever done. Combining the symphonic bent of
2002’s Li’l Beethoven, adding vocals, and adding a little
thud from Red Kross bassist Steve McDonald and rock guitarists Dean
Menta (Faith No More) and Jim Wilson (Rollins Band), this thing
is one big fat giddy nitrous hit. The addition of the rock players
to the composed operatic base harkens back to their early 1970s
classic period. But don’t get me wrong, this isn’t Sparks
going backwards – Hello Young Lovers is a contemporary record
that’s clearly of our times but informed by the band’s
public trial and error since 1971 – including their syth-pop
and disco phases but focusing on their earliest, glam, and latest,
orchestral.
The
opener, “Dick Around,” reminds you where Queen’s
inspiration, particularly on A Night at the Opera, comes from in
the first place – gazillions of parts and harmonies, dense
operatic vocal arrangements, sparse paino-based breaks, and giant
heavy metal crescendos. The irony is that this song about getting
nothing done is quite an involved accomplishment. My favorite here,
the repetitive synth-based build of “Perfume” will remind
you of the bounce of their early 1980s pop songs. The lyrics are
a list that matches the names of girls with their perfumes of choice
– followed by “that’s why I want to spend my life
with you.” I hope they get some cash when this is in an ad
for a fragrance store. “The Very Next Fight” is a baroque
piano-based number revolving around anger management (“some
idiot’s staring at you legs I know/You try to tell me I should
let it go/but how can I let it go when I can’t control myself”).
“(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country” is a spectacular
pop number whose riff harkens back to Jacko’s “Black
and White” and is of course an innuendo (“my favorite
Beatle’s always been Ringo/the least outspoken/the apolitical
one."). Another of the best is “Metaphor” (chicks
dig/D-I-G/metaphors/use them wisely/use them well/and you’ll
never know the well… of loneliness) - which, after opening
with pianos, acoustic guitar, and vocal harmony, explodes into pure
Devo, before descending into huge orchestral hard rock and winding
down with acoustic guitars and strings.
“Hello
Young Lovers” is quite an event and a reminder that no one
has ever been at once so gleefully stupid and smart, jaded and enthusiastic.
Sparks has created some of the most serious music that’s ever
refused to take itself seriously. Admit it, you hate ‘em…
©
New York Night Train , 2006
|
|