火花乐队

Sparks is an American pop and rock duo consisting of brothers Ron (keyboards) and Russell Mael (vocals). Formed as the band Halfnelson in 1968 in the Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, Sparks are noted for their quirky approach to songwriting; their music is often accompanied by sophisticated and acerbic lyrics—sometimes containing literary or cinematic references—and an idiosyncratic, theatrical stage presence, typified by the contrast between Russell's animated, hyperactive front-man antics and Ron's deadpan scowling. Russell Mael has a distinctive wide-ranging voice, while Ron Mael plays keyboards in an intricate and rhythmic style. Their frequently changing styles and visual presentations have kept the band at the forefront of modern, artful pop music.

Career highlights include the glam rock song "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us", which reached No. 2 on the UK singles chart in 1974; the disco hits "The Number One Song in Heaven" and "Beat the Clock" in 1979, resulting from a collaboration with Giorgio Moroder and marking a stylistic shift towards new wave and synth-pop; "When I'm with You", which made the Australian and French Singles Charts in 1980; the single "I Predict", which provided Sparks' first appearance on the Billboard Hot 100, reaching No. 60 in May 1982; the 1983 single "Cool Places" with the Go-Go's rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist Jane Wiedlin, and the Eurodisco song "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'", which was the top airplay record in Germany for 1994.

The release of their nineteenth studio album Lil' Beethoven (2002), the duo's self-proclaimed "genre-defining opus", fused repetitive song structures with orchestral arrangements, and brought them renewed critical success. In 2015, the band released their sole album with Scottish indie rock band Franz Ferdinand, as the supergroup FFS, titled FFS. In 2017, returning to a rock-group format, Sparks released Hippopotamus, which entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 7, as did their next album, A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip, released in 2020, bringing their tally of UK Top 10 albums to four. In 2021, Sparks were involved in two films: the Leos Carax musical film Annette for which they wrote all songs (winning the César Award for Best Original Music), and the Edgar Wright documentary The Sparks Brothers recounting the history of the band. The band's 25th studio album The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte was released on May 26, 2023, via Island Records, and again entered the UK Albums Chart at No. 7. Mad! was released in May 2025 and entered the UK album chart at no. 2, the duo's highest ever chart position.

History

Inception

Brothers Ron and Russell Mael grew up in Pacific Palisades, a neighborhood in the Westside region of the city of Los Angeles, during the "Golden Age" of the L.A. club scene, when the Doors, the Standells, and Love played the Whisky a Go Go on Sunset Strip and the Beach Boys played in the late afternoon at Teen-Age Fair at Pickwick Recreation Center in Burbank, California.

Both Ron and Russell Mael are seen in the audience during the Ronettes' section of the concert film The Big T.N.T. Show, filmed in 1965. Both attended University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Ron studied cinema and graphic art, and Russell studied theatre arts and filmmaking. Detesting the folk music scene, which they considered "cerebral and sedate and we had no time for that", they developed a particular taste in English bands of the time such as the Who, Pink Floyd, the Kinks and the Move, which led to their description of themselves as "Anglophiles".

Ron and Russell's very first recordings were made with the Urban Renewal Project on January 14, 1967, at the Fidelity Recording Studios in Hollywood, Los Angeles. Four tracks were recorded with Fred and Ronna Frank, 16-year old drummer Raymond Clayton, and 22-year old Harold Zellman on bass guitar. Ron was considered the lead guitarist and Russell was the lead vocalist, also playing the tambourine and harmonica. The other three tracks are: "The Windmill", "A Quick Thought" and "As You Like It". Russell plays pan flute on "A Quick Thought". The songs were pressed on two acetates and have never been released, apart from the track "Computer Girl", which was featured on a CD included with the Japanese semi-biography from 2006 and more widely released on the Past Tense greatest hits album in 2019.