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- Verified Buyer
Ron and Russell Mael tried a curious experiment with their third album. Sparks had established itself in Los Angeles in the very early 1970s as a club act based on their deep appreciation for the early sixties Britpop acts, and in particular the Kinks. They had developed a following at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go, they had released two effective albums with their fellow bandmates the Mankey brothers (yes, the producer and later the Concrete Blonde member), they had had a very minor hit with "Wonder Girl", and they had made some initial media breakthroughs. They had not, unfortunately, sold enough records to earn a living--remember, this was years before new wave bands like the Jam made a living from such homage to an era only eight to ten years removed. The Maels reacted with a daring gambit. They had not impressed America with their Britpop sound--so why not sell their Britpop to Brits? They promptly moved to London, hired a Britpop backing band, tilted the lyrics decisively into rapid-fire Gilbert and Sullivan territory, and changed the sound into, of all things-- guitar-pop Kinks-drenched, ringing guitar, British 19th Century music hall singalong. The band used Russell's fantastically melodic and piercingly high falsetto as the centerpiece and principal driving weapon of the affair. Kimono My House is the first of two resulting records based on this sound. The whole thing improbably works, making this one of the great underappreciated acts of pop genius released in its era. Ron Mael's lyrics are laden with light opera humor, and are intelligent, contemporary, and indelibly odd. Lyrically, Sparks in this era sounds like the Residents might sound if the Residents wrote songs targeted at 12 year old girls. Russell Mael's falsetto is one of those unforgettable things--never critically appreciated, and yet absolutely unique (an analogy might be made with Keith Emerson's live work on keyboards spinning in mid-air during this time period). Kimono My House defies description--the Sweet's "Ballroom Blitz" had a similar glampop sound, but Sparks was an altogether different thing. This album is as listenable 25 years after its release as it was when it made the Maels perhaps the most unlikely teenybop idols that Melody Maker ever produced. If you're considering whether you might like Kimono My House, ask yourself the following questions: do you enjoy a band that knows how to parody itself and everything about it? do you like melodic power pop that does not take itself too seriously? do you enjoy an amusing lyric and a band that is willing to try something odd and fun? If your answers were "yes", this is the CD for you. In hindsight, Cheap Trick soon thereafter sorted out how to take the Sparkseque humor and meld it into a wonderful cartoon-metal sound. But nobody did Kinks-as-music-hall-vaudeville as well ever again....
