Soldiers Sailors Stuntmen Jailers

Sparks : Occupation

[Purchase]

In October of 1977, Sparks released its second album for Columbia Records, the humorously named Introducing Sparks. It's quite possible that the entire album is one big inside joke, making fun of the vapid L.A. session player pop that had helped artists like Alan O'Day, Andrew Gold and Shaun Cassidy score hits in 1977.

 Either that or the Mael Brothers really were hoping to sell out, ( only allowing their true selves to emerge in its Eastern European stomp "Goofing Off" and the Beach Boys parody "Over The Summer").

In either case even Sparks fans usually try to disregard the album. That's probably not fair, The more time I spend with Introducing Sparks, the more I like it.

Here's what the dean of rock critics, Robert Christgau , wrote in his B graded review:

On its five albums for Bearsville and Island, this skillful brother act compounded personal hatefulness with a deliberately tense and uninviting take on pop-rock. But with their Columbia debut, Big Beat, they began to loosen up, and here one cut actually makes surf music history, in the tending-to-hyperconsciousness section. This is tuneful, funny, even open. But the fear of women and the stubborn, spoiled-teenager cynicism is still there, and it's still hateful.