476. Sparks, "Kimono My House"

 


I am almost positive that I first became aware of Sparks from the movie Valley Girl, in which they are featured on the soundtrack.  By the way, this is only tangentially Sparks-related, but Valley Girl is a great movie with a great soundtrack.  The movie, a Romeo and Juliet-style star-crossed lovers story featuring a very young Nic Cage and a bunch of other people who did not go on to the same level, is funny and sweet and charming.  It was like one of 12 movies we owned on VCR when I was a kid and I watched it incessantly.  It was to the early 80's was the Mission-Marina divide was to the early 00's in San Francisco.  

And the soundtrack featured the Plimsouls and Sparks and the Psychedelic Furs and is pretty much responsible for making Modern English's "I Melt With You" the song everybody knows and is completely sick of by now.

Back to Sparks and specifically this album.  I always thought that Sparks was from New Zealand for some reason but they're just from L.A.  (I think I had them confused with Split Enz, who are, in fact, from New Zealand.)  They've been around since 1967! 

This album sounds like a rock opera without a plot, or maybe the "Galileo Galileo" part of "Bohemian Rhapsody" expanded into full songs.  When I was listening to it - and this was the first time I'd ever heard it - at first I really did not care for it.  I thought it was far too arch and theater-kid-y for me, but the more I listened to it, it started to kind of grow on me.  I even went back and listened to a couple of the songs again.  (Specifically, "Talent Is An Asset" and "Thank God It's Not Christmas".) Not sure I'll ever go back and revisit it - it's still a bit too over-the-top for regular listening - but I'm glad I encountered it on this journey.

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