Sparks Hello Young Lovers CD

Sparks: Jim Wilson (guitar); Steve McDonald (bass guitar); Tammy Glover, Dean Menta, Ron Mael, Russell Mael.
Personnel: Russell Mael (vocals); Dean Menta, Jim Wilson (guitar); Ron Mael (keyboards); Tammy Glover (drums).
Audio Mixer: John Thomas.
Recording information: Sparks Studio, Los Angeles, CA.
Photographer: Aaron Rapoport.
Arrangers: Ron Mael; Russell Mael.
Ron and Russell Mael, aka Sparks, have been making some of the most confounding and incredibly enjoyable music of the past 30 years. HELLO YOUNG LOVERS (2006) stays true to Sparks' manic tradition and holds up against the band's classic 1970s albums. For newcomers, the easiest musical reference point for Sparks is Queen: both bands share a fondness for the operatic potential of rock and pop. Sparks' artistry, however, is in a world completely unto itself, and avoids rock clichés at every turn while somehow managing to embrace all of them. Take for example the opener, "Dick Around": with its synthesized orchestration giving way to a piano-driven pop bridge and a near-heavy-metal interlude that leads to a soaring finale, it's a remarkable rush--and unlike anything else in pop music. All the songs contain a similar schizophrenic indulgence, from the dating/grammar lesson "Metaphor" to "(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?"--easily the most bizarre and incessantly catchy protest song to emerge from the War on Terror. HELLO YOUNG LOVERS is a strange, captivating listen that will surely please longtime fans while proving once again that the Mael brothers are two of the most underappreciated geniuses in music.
Why it is that after years or even decades some artists continue to thrill and entertain while others just burn out badly is one of those great mysteries, but in the example of Ron and Russell Mael, aka Sparks, they're firmly in the former category. Hello Young Lovers is their 20th studio album in 35 years, not to mention one of their best. Following on from their enjoyable all-classical instrumentation experiment, Lil' Beethoven, Sparks take their cue here from the album's one song that added full rock band instrumentation to all the strings, "Ugly Guys with Beautiful Girls." The resulting fusion on Hello Young Lovers -- with the brothers and drummer Tammy Glover now accompanied full-time by former touring guitarist Dean Menta, along with Redd Kross' Steve McDonald guesting on bass and Jim Wilson on guitar -- audibly harks back to the U.K. glam era of the band but crucially does not simply replicate it. Instead, it's as close to a full mélange of all the band's various sounds thus far over the years, as Lil' Beethoven's orchestral swoops are shot through with feedback and subtler hints of the various dance incarnations of the duo. Opening track "Dick Around," with its rapidly ascending and descending melodies, absolutely precise performance (Russell's voice continues to be one of the best ever in the field while Ron's ear for immediate but busy-as-heck hooks similarly hasn't gone stale), and back-and-forth arrangements between strings and guitar is a tour de force on its own, not to mention showing that the trademark Mael misanthropic wit remains fully intact. From there, Hello Young Lovers is off to the races, with only a tiny misstep or two along the way ("Here Kitty" is cute but slight, "Metaphor" takes a while to connect fully). First single "Perfume" is a delight, a finger-snapping swing of a song that's still very 21st century, with a classic Russell spoken word break to boot. Other highlights include the outrageous "(Baby Baby) Can I Invade Your Country?," a reworking of the American national anthem that turns into the slyest post-9/11 song yet, and the stellar conclusion "When I Sit Down to the Play the Organ in the Notre Dame Cathedral." "Waterproof" might be the best song in the end, Russell singing like butter couldn't melt in his mouth about being a merrily heartless bastard untroubled by his former love's "Meryl Streep mimicry" whilUncut (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[I]nfectious yet audacious, avant-garde yet commercial....[The opener is] an astonishing intro to this schlock opera and a highpoint in the annals of art-pop bombast..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The band's 20th album, HELLO YOUNG LOVERS delights in the absurd, the grand, theatrical gesture, and the knowing, witty aside....Sparks remain a puzzle, and how refreshing is that?