Does Records at Random look a little weird to you today? Well, if it does it’s ’cause I kinda got thrown a curveball this morning. As usual, I rolled out of bed, grabbed a stack of records and walked them over to the desk where my computer and record player sit. I got a beverage, pulled out a record and plunked it down on my turntable. Satisfied with my pick after a couple of songs I grabbed the sleeve, set it on the floor and reached for my camera to take a snap-shot when I remembered I’d let a certain housemate of mine borrow it.
Being the demanding perfectionist that I am I just couldn’t run a regular Records at Random post without a photo of the actual album cover taken by actual me, so I decided to take my misfortune as an opportunity to do something a little different like I’ve been threatening to do for months now. So, I dug into my “digital crates” looking for something appropriate to feature that I’d have fun listening to and settled on No. 1 In Heaven, the groundbreaking 1978 album by sibling duo Sparks, an influential but not wildly popular band who have become an MP3 player obsession of mine.
Comprised of brothers Ron and Russell Mael, Sparks (who are still together and recording) originally formed in Los Angeles but took up residence in England, where their uniquely experimental Glam-Rock/Power-Pop (think: Queen meets 10cc with a side of Steely Dan) found more accepting ears, for a portion of the ’70s. Over the years the band changed personnel, set up shop in LA again, worked with an array of producers, and tried their hand at a number of varying Pop music styles and sounds. But No. 1 In Heaven, produced by Italo-Disco maestro Giorgio Moroder in his signature style, was not only a departure — even for them — but quite an artistic gamble for an already “unusual” Rock band during the time when “Disco Sucks” was the rallying cry for rockers and Disco itself was peaking commercially.
Sufficed to say it wasn’t a blockbuster here in the states — although it did have an impact overseas with numerous singles released in various format, some of which attained chart success — and it isn’t generally held up by Sparks fans as their greatest work. But being the enormous fan of modern “Rock” acts like LCD Soundsystem, Of Montreal (who owe a massive debt to Sparks in general) and Hot Chip, whose music is saturated with electronic instruments, anchored by galloping dance beats and aimed at the discotheque rather than the arena, that I am, No. 1 In Heaven is right up my alley. How could a record that sounds like glammy proto-Indie-Pop genetically grafted to the Hi-NRG of Sylvester and the theatrical Disco of Dr. Buzzards Original Savannah Band not be?
The pairing of Ron on keyboards and Russell on vocals had always been Sparks’ core, with a predilection for unconventional but catchy songcraft their trademark. Working with Moroder doesn’t dull their melodic ear though, nor does it temper their oddball tendencies. Russell’s whimsically overwraught falsetto rains down on the icy landscape of Rob and Giorgio’s synthesizers like the white-hot sweat of copulating angels, obscenely melting it all into a puddle of dancefloor lubricating Pop goo with absurd lyrics about money-hungry gigolos (on “La Dolce Vita”), sperm racing for the chance to fertilize an egg (the DFA Records-before-the-was-a-DFA Records-sounding “Tryouts for the Human Race”) and the unacknowledged divinity of popular music (the album closing opus “No. 1 Song In Heaven”).
Russell even sings through a vocoder on the eerily funky “My Other Voice.” Over back-masked hi-hats and ride cymbals, a sort of ESG-esque throbbing bassline (which also reminds me of Yoko Ono’s Club Classic “Walking On Thin Ice”), insistently thumping drum-beat, trickling synths, chunky drum-machine beats, electronic chimes and crybaby guitars Russell’s vocodered voice insists you “listen to [his] other voice.” Then his regular voice comes in, dramatically cooing about how his other voice “can destroy this room.” To which the vocoded Russell responds with sweet threats about his spooky vocal powers.
Songs like “My Other Voice,” “Tryouts for the Human Race” and the title track which make it impossible to view No. 1 in Heaven as a flailing attempt at cashing in on Disco by a band desperate to establish it’s relevance. It’s just too weird, too pretty, and too perfect.