SPARKS

[dinky]

Got chatting to a fan next to me at the concert in Manchester this year. She told me FFS and Sparks had fallen out towards the end. I'd not heard anything of this, and thought that the contribution of Alex Kapranos was one of most genuine and thoughtful of anyone's in the documentary

Favourite song on the album was 'King of the Song, beautiful song about Daddy's, and very moving in the context of R and R's life

Don't like gratuitous swearing, so Piss Off goes straight in the bin

Love Johnny Delusional, the rest of the tracks are clicked through often

7/10

[Spyke]

I really like this chapter in Sparks' career, from the story of how the collaboration happened to the thoroughly fun tour (when the band came out to the Blake's 7 theme tune!).
The album hangs together well as an album, having a similar sound throughout, despite the combinations of songwriters. It's more of a 'pop' album than Sparks' other 21st century output, not that that's a criticism - it just demonstrates that they can still turn their hand to this style and do it very well. All of the songs are solidly well written, combining the best aspects of FF's and S' talents. My favourite track is Police Encounters, and I'd say the only weak track (relatively) is So Desu Ne, including the bonus tracks.
8.5/10
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"but we can hear what others can't hear..."

[Oscar]

I definitely think of this album as part of Sparks' discography, even if it's not technically a "Sparks" album. Including the bonus tracks, there are 7 songs here that were written entirely by Ron and Russell, so if you want to look at it like that, it's at least a Sparks EP (with FF as their backup band). Ron and Russell have said that working on this album got them back into the idea of doing shorter, poppier songs, as they did on subsequent Sparks albums, so FFS does have an important place in their catalog.

I'd heard the "So Many Bridges" and "Piss Off" demos before the album came out, and I thought they were...OK. Of the two of them, I liked "Piss Off" more, especially the bridge. But I was still really excited about the collaboration. Hearing "Johnny Delusional" and "Call Girl" before the album came out kind of dampened my enthusiasm just a bit, but when they released "Collaborations Don't Work" as a preview track, I was fully on board. The sequencing on this album reminds me of A Steady Drip, where my favorite tracks are pretty much all in the middle of the album. "Dictator's Son" is the song that sounds most like it could be a non-FFS Sparks song, and it's great. But the run from "Police Encounters" to "Collaborations Don't Work" is what really makes me love this album. "Police Encounters" is so fun to sing along to in the car ("BOMP BOMP DITTY DITTY BOMP BOMP DITTY DITTY"), "Save Me from Myself" seems like it could've been a leftover from the Island years (though not quite up to that level), "So Desu Ne" is fun in a different way than Sparks songs usually are -- sounds to me like a cross between Devo and Momus.

The only other one I want to comment on is "Things I Won't Get," because I think it's a sweet love song that doesn't sacrifice the Maels' personality or sense of humor. It's kind of a precursor to "All That," but I probably like it more than "All That."

Oh! And I'll also say that "Look at Me" is easily my favorite of the bonus tracks. It's no "Profile," which has a similar lyrical sentiment, but it's still pretty enjoyable.

Favorite track: "Collaborations Don't Work"
Least favorite: "Little Guy from the Suburbs" -- not a bad song, but just kills the album's momentum.

7.5/10

[Buckeye Randy]

Exotic Creatures was a good album but it was also time to turn the page.

I still play FFS cover to cover which is more than I can say for most releases.

Johnny Delusional is timeless. I loved this line from the first time I heard it, "Some might find me borderline attractive from afar". Ha!

Other favorites: The Power Couple, Collaborations Don't Work but honestly, the whole disc plays nice.

I would love to hear Iggy do Police Encounters in that creepy spoken word he favors lately.

8/10
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Billy, Don't Be A Porter

[Toughest Girl In Town]

Time didn't fly at all. First, you must know that I've never been a fan of Franz Ferdinand's music at all, and I don't like Kapranos in particular (or at least the personality he shows to the public and press)... so listening to FFS is always a bit painful to me.

I'm not surprised FF & Sparks fell out at some point, I remember seeing a video from an FFS live show where Kapranos leaves the stage on his own before the end without notice, looking absolutely pissed. When being questioned about this later on Twitter, he just replied "I've had enough". I found that very disgraceful. It's a shame I can't find this video, I'll post it here if I ever retrieve it.

Many songs from this album sound too much like FF, like "Things I won't get" or "Man without a tan" that I find pretty irritating. "So desu ne" is much too repetitive but the song I dislike the most is probably "Little guy from the suburbs". I'd be very disappointed if I ever found out Ron wrote this one, even just partially.

There are also (thankfully!) much better songs here, like "Johnny delusional", "Police encounters" (I can't help getting wrong each time and sing "Police inspectors" instead) and "Collaborations don't work" which gives us a nice flavour of this "4-songs-in-1" structure that Ron does so well.

My favourite song is "Save me from myself", especially the verse that sounds so Sparksian.

4/10

[SteveBoyce]

[highersynth]

I'm posting my review now, so I don't have to listen to the album again to remind myself - which probably says it all.
I don't dislike all of it, and some tracks I love, but by temperament and preference I'm a bit of a purist, so find it hard to come to terms with collaborative work.

I love - Johnny Delusional, Call Girl, Police Encounters, all of which sound more like S than like FF.
I quite like - Save me from Myself, So Many Bridges.
I really dislike - The Power Couple, So Desu Ne, Piss Off
and the rest is just meh and pretty boring to me.

I've listened to the album once previously with my Sparkschum in the car, and we got bored and switched it off, so I'd have been surprised if I wanted to give a glowing review now.

In quite a few of the tracks, (especially the early ones) Russell's voice sounds a bit worn - to my mind, it is vocally the least good I've ever heard him, and I can't quite put my finger on why. It's not really pitched awkwardly for him, but he sounds a bit - well - old and tired. (That feels like blasphemy!) I can spot Ron's usual flair with lyrics, but looking at the credits I can see that a number of the tracks I'm not keen on are Sparks compositions. I guess that's no surprise - these aren't the first of their offerings that are not to my taste and with a catalogue as extensive as theirs it's unsurprising. I don't think I've every voluntarily listened to FF at all, and I don't think their work is that appealing to me.

It's sad to hear of fallings out between artists - it's not something I'd heard about before, and I agree with whoever commented that Alex' contribution to TSB was among the most warm and gracious. I know nothing about Alex or his band, but for the most part pop artists seem not to be terribly predictable, often because of predilections for substances, so maybe that's just what happened here. Or maybe he's clean and sober and also capricious and moody. Who knows? And just maybe our guys are not the easiest to work with - it would not surprise me if their high standards of artistry tried the patience of any collaborator.

[phdave that afternoon]

I love this album. It is one of the reasons I decided to go all in on Sparks. I liked FF's first album but didn't really follow them that closely after that. But I knew they were a band I liked and it got my attention when I heard about their collaboration in the documentary. I loved Johnny Delusional right away when I heard it on the Past Tense album. I was listening to a mix of Sparks on Amazon Music and Police Encounters came on and I was all in immediately and wanted to hear the whole album. I immediately loved Collaborations Don't Work also. I enjoyed Save me From Myself and Call Girl next.

I mostly put it aside as I started my long journey into all Sparks albums at a time, so I didn't have strong opinions of the other songs. Now that I have listened a bit more this week, the other songs are good. I really like So Many Bridges. I had not heard that until recently because I only listened to the original album at first. The rest of the songs are probably in the same category of enjoyment. I probably would not listen to them individually as I would JD, CDW, and PE. I like them as part of the album and do not feel the need to skip them. My favorite is probably Police Encounters. I find it so funny and fun to listen to. Least favorite is probably King of the Song, although it was running through my head this morning. Maybe Power Couple also, although I am fine with all of them and have fun listening to it from start to finish.

FFS makes me want to listen to FF more and catch up with what they have produced since their first. I don't know much about them as a band or personally or their history before or after FFS. I am watching a lot of interviews on YT about FFS to get more of the feel for how they formed the collaboration. Amazing how many interviews cover the same exact stories. I'm sure everyone got tired of answering the same questions and giving the same answers over and over, but I guess that is standard for a publicity tour.

I give it a 9/10.
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I don’t have time to fill out questionnaires.

[waterloosunset]

[Toughest Girl In Town]

[waterloosunset]

No time to write much. FFS is good fun, but it doesn’t knock my socks off. With Sparks songs, I often find new things even after I have listened to a song myriad times, but with FFS, I don’t get that organic feeling. My faves are Johnny Delusional, Little Guy From the Suburbs (the “no heroes” parts), Police Encounters, Collaborations Don’t Work, and the extra track So Many Bridges. Most of the rest are fine pop songs, though I don’t like The Man Without a Tan and The Power Couple very much.

Favorite song: Police Encounters
Least favorite song: The Power Couple
Score: 6.5/10
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better drop the requirement that everything be great

[highersynth]

Welcome to Week 22 of Album Club - w/c 4th December - Hippopotamus

You can find a link to the album on Spotify here:

https://open.spotify.com/album/0MngnORF2qS94ULHHO3ezD?si=to3mcKTDSpi96pWaGdoPNQ

Prompts for discussion, if needed, and scores for previous albums, at the top of the thread.
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Tomorrow I'll find out all I should know...

[Andy M]

“Well, isn’t this a little bit like joy”

Hippopotamus isn’t a groundbreaking album by Sparks in the way, say, Lil’ Beethoven was. It isn’t a radical new direction, like No 1 or Gratuitous Sax. It is, instead, a culmination of years of championing pop by R&R. It’s a pure pop album, and a joy from start to finish. Fifteen tracks, not one a bummer (and I’m including Bummer in this, of course!) The bookending tracks themselves are worth a mention: I can’t imagine many other songwriters would tackle the early signs of dementia and Macbeth as a reality tv show on the same album as Ron does here. (By no means could this be called frothy pop.) That’s on top of revisiting other Sparksian themes, such as a dialogue with God, a collaboration with a film director and – as ever – sex.

It’s interesting that after The Sparks Brothers came out Russell was asked as to which album a Sparks tyro should try first, and he answered Hippopotamus.

The album cover is also one of the best Sparks covers. The best physical version to buy? The vinyl – enjoy the large-scale view of the hippo in the pool . . .

10/10

[Toughest Girl In Town]

Do we skip "The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman"?

[dinky]

[highersynth]

Happy to have a go at Ingmar Bergman. My rationale for omitting it is that it's of a piece, like Annette, rather than an album of individual songs.
That's not to dis it - just felt it would form part of a separate thread. If the feeling is cover it here, let's cover it here (suggest next week though for the sake of keeping order in the thread) - shout up everyone!
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Tomorrow I'll find out all I should know...

[Toughest Girl In Town]

I agree this is not a typical album format, but it's a piece of art I'd love to discuss here... I'm happy to do that next week if that's ok for everyone!

It's also fine if we get a separate thread for it, it's just that I'm curious to hear all of your thoughts on this special album.

Back to hippo for now :)

[Spyke]

I'd be happy to discuss Ingmar Bergman here.

Hippopotamus is a confident collection of solid, funny tracks with interesting and lively hooks and melodies. 10/10s include Missionary Position, Edith Piaf, What The Hell, Mrs Lincoln, and nearly all the others aren't far behind. I wouldn't have minded if the couple of tracks which I don't think hit the top heights (Bummer, Giddy Giddy) were instead used as b-sides to single releases, but that's old fashioned now! Sparks are really firing on all cylinders with this album.
9/10
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"but we can hear what others can't hear..."

[Alex Robertson]

When Hippopotamus was announced, I wasn't sure what to expect, my mind was wandering in a Flanders and Swann direction.
What I got instead was Mael and Mael misdirection.
An album of joy and pathos and humour in varying degrees, but at the top end of the scale. Everything about this album is pure Sparks, perhaps a more mature and introspective Sparks who have retained their trademark humour...the album cover bears testimony to that humour. An album which is a pleasure from start to finish. All favourites.
I'd mark this offering as a 9/10

[Andy M]

Now we've skipped Seduction anyway, why not go with highersynth's original plan, which polishes off the "traditional" albums before Christmas, and then tackles the rest of the Maels' oeuvre in the New Year?

Whatever, I'll go with the flow!