Sparks star in a typically entertaining and eccentric video opposite Rebecca Taylor (aka Self Esteem) for their new single Porcupine.
After 60 years you could forgive the Mael brothers for retiring from performing and composing at an age where many of their contemporaries are already decomposing.
Instead, in their eighth and ninth decade on earth, Sparks show no sign of slowing down. If anything, they are busier than ever.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of their tune but this video, co-starring Rebecca Taylor, is so great that I can overlook it, emphasising their status as the performance artists of pop.
Is it possible that Sparks might be running out of musical inspiration after a mere 60 years – losing their creative spark, you might suggest?
I’d hesitate to say so but, while their originality, eccentricity and wit (especially that) remain undiminished, they increasingly seem to rely on repetition rather than tunes.
Like their recent single, Do Things My Own Way, this new song – Porcupine – has little more to it than a riff and a phrase repeated over and over again.
The good news is that what we lose in the aural sphere we gain in the visual one, where their creativity only gets better and better. We should not be surprised; they have been becoming more and more involved in film making alongside their music career.
This tune, following their most recent collaboration with Gorillaz on The Happy Dictator – and a surprise appearance by the Maels at their London show -comes from a new four-track EP.
As suggested by the title, MADDER! is being released as a companion to, and in the same spirit of, Sparks’ most recent MAD! album.
Of course it would be foolish to suggest any kind of creative dip might be anything other than temporary with the Maels, whose last three albums, released with them both in their seventies, have been their most successful, eclipsing even their Glam heyday in the actual Seventies.
And the 2023 show I saw them put on at the Royal Albert Hall – almost half a century after I first saw them live in Taunton – was one of the best I’ve ever seen.
Not bad for a pair of brothers who are, respectively, 80 years old (Ron) and about to be 77 on Sunday (Russell). Happy Birthday Russ!