Few bands will ever reach the half-century mark, and fewer still could manage that looking so blasé as Sparks. They watch time pass with wry distance, adopting musical fashions like visitors from a parallel dimension. The Brothers Mael got the first of their occasional hits during the 1970s glam era, but their affect owed more to vaudeville than rock theater: urbane, contrived, pushing formulas to absurd ends, with Russell an antic pile of hair and Ron a severe, unmoving mustache. (He’s said that he grew it in tribute to Charlie Chaplin.) Sparks’ breakthrough single “This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us,” released in 1974, was all prancing swagger, but its lyrics mocked male posturing, a favorite Mael target: “Heartbeat, increasing heartbeat/You hear the thunder of stampeding rhinos, elephants, and tacky tigers.” One could easily miss the sheer number of words Russell piles up, or how the melody seems to dart for cover. It takes a lot of care to sound that ridiculous.
Sparks started working with Giorgio Moroder as the ’70s ended, shedding the shell of their band. No other synth-pop group had yet achieved the same balance of irony and sentiment, at least not until Pet Shop Boys came along a few years later. Their camp could give form to something inexpressible: “I never feel like garbage when I’m with you/I almost feel normal when I’m with you.” Later Sparks albums stuck with that electronic template, but the Maels have found new ways to amuse themselves. 2002’s Lil’ Beethoven used orchestral arrangements, while 2015’s FFS enlisted Franz Ferdinand as a perverse backing band. So the title track of Hippopotamus, the first Sparks qua Sparks record in nearly a decade, would naturally be a bouncy aria, one they rhyme with “anonymous,” “Hieronymus,” “abacus,” “microbus,” and “Titus Andronicus.”
More surprising is just how well Russell Mael’s voice holds up, especially given his tendency towards falsetto, stealing away phrases like an eagle with a tortoise. He’s still got the range, but age has softened his highest register—Mael floats above himself in overdubs, a sprite strumming along to mortal folly. “Edith Piaf (Said It Better Than Me)” invokes her “Je ne regrette rien” only to politely demur (“Pretty song, but not intended for me”), as the narrator describes a life untouched by danger or sin: “There were no smoky dives/Few amours, fous or not/There were no petty crimes/Foreign substances bought.” The music swells in melodramatic counterpoint. It’s impossible to tell which direction the joke is even aimed towards. I laughed.
The risk here is that listening to three or four minutes of unfunny satire feels agonizing. (Roy Scheider in All That Jazz, dying and delirious, to God: “What’s the matter, don’t you like musical comedy?”) Sparks’ wit does fail them with a couple of Hippopotamus tracks: “Giddy Giddy” repeats a thin conceit at irritating length, and “The Amazing Mr. Repeat” apparently exists to justify its vocal contortions. But Ron Mael’s arrangements can estrange the silliest premise. “When You’re a French Director” features actual French director Leos Carax cackling about auteurism, the lurching brass and accordion forever entertaining some demonic bistro. “Unaware” addresses a baby in the womb, listing off news and trivia she’ll remain happily ignorant of. The production smothers Russell’s voice with guitar feedback, as if he were seeding her subconscious.
The Sparks catalog does not lack for unpleasant characters or situations, but existential anxiety rarely comes through this overtly. “Probably Nothing” seems like a trifle at first, until you realize it’s a meta joke about memory loss and the fear of dementia. Elsewhere the duo laments how dreary it is giving half-ignored funeral speeches (“All of them prattle on/Even your widow yawns”), a task that must be coming up more and more often. “It’s a—,” Russell begins, pausing in solemn caricature, before another voice completes the thought: “—bummer.” Mael also talks about quoting Shakespeare; I thought of Yorick, and the grin Death steals from every jester.
