Bubbling Under: Sparks- "With All My Might"

The Mael Brothers in the 80's and Beyond

Welcome to Bubbling Under. Each edition I cover an artist that charted outside the Hot 100 on Billboard's Bubbling Under chart. This week: Sparks

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Last we heard of Ron and Russell Mael in Bubbling Under, they had relocated to England after signing to Island Records. That union proved successful for around a year, scoring the brothers multiple UK hits including the classic “This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us”, their breakthrough single.

Eventually, their career waned a bit and the brothers went back to the United States where they recorded an album with Bubbling Under favourite Rupert Holmes and appeared in the 1977 psychopath on a rampage thriller Rollercoaster as themselves.

In the film, the band perform two tracks from their 1976 Big Beat album “Big Boy” and “Fill-Er-Up”. Supposedly, both Kiss and the Bay City Rollers had been tapped to perform in the movie until Sparks were hired.

I liked Rollercoaster for the 1970s-era thriller that it is, but the Mael Brothers were later widely quoted as saying they didn’t like the movie. They’d hoped to work on a film called Confusion with legendary French director Jacques Tati instead but Tati’s death halted their plans. Further plans over the years to make a movie reached a dead end and it wasn’t until 2021’s Annette that they worked in the medium of film again.

One of the things I love about Ron and Russell Mael is that they are able to reinvent themselves regularly. The first major shift in their sound occurred through a chance meeting with a European music journalist. The brothers mentioned being fans of Giorgio Moroder. The journalist just happened to be friends with the legendary producer, and the result was not only their greatest album but one of the greatest albums of all time, 1979’s No. 1 In Heaven. The iconic album gave the duo two more UK hits with the title track and Beat The Clock. They also moved into producing themselves working with the singer Noel on her lone album Is There More To Life Than Dancing?

They also (unfortunately) produced this:

The follow-up, 1980’s Terminal Jive was a similar effort. Maybe not as iconic as their previous effort, but still solid, bolstered by the should-have-been-a-classic “When I’m With You.” The Mael Brothers had moved into music videos with their previous album. The medium was a great fit for their quirky brand of humour, and really, it was a match made in heaven. “When I’m With You” had a wonderfully bizarre video which featured Hot Gossip dancer, Blitz Kid, and one-time partner of Billy Idol, Perri Lister:

Sparks released one album a year from 1979-1984. While the songs weren’t quite up there with their 1970s output, there were a ton of highlights. The increasingly crazy videos the brothers were releasing helped add another element to their already quirky music and image. 1981’s Whomp That Sucker featured two strong singles in the hilarious “Tips For Teens” which contained the opening lyrics:

“I've got a snapshot of your Aunt Maureen
She's 90 and you're a teen
I'm trying to cheer you up
Don't be so mean, don't be so mean
Crash, bam, now you're looking good
Tip Top, now you're feeling good
Once more, here's your Aunt Maureen
Don't you feel good, don't you feel good”

“Tips For Teens” was followed up with the bizarre yet catchy synth-pop of “Funny Face”. “Funny Face” is about a man who hates being good-looking, so he jumps off a bridge and is content when he survives and now has the “Funny Face” of the title.

Neither of these were going to be hits, but they both featured memorable videos.

“Tips For Teens” consisted of a Ron and Russell wrestling match:

The Sam Peckinpah-directed video for ”Funny Face” featured Ron in a mask scaring small children playing “Ring Around The Rosey”:

1982’s Angst In My Pants represented something of a turning point for the band. The band had teamed up with German producer Mack on their previous album, Whomp That Sucker. Mack was riding high at the time, also being a go-to producer for Queen. I’m going to sum up Mack with the following: He produced “Another One Bites The Dust”. He brought a 1-2 punch to Sparks, another match made in heaven as Giorgio Moroder had been. Angst In My Pants also contains their greatest album cover:

I’m just gonna leave this here.

I’ve never had an easy time finding vinyl by these guys. Years ago, I came across Angst In My Pants on vinyl and deeply regret not buying it. It’s a solid album. Angst also contained their first single to dent the Hot 100.

“I Predict” is a solid Cars-style rocker featuring Russell making false predictions. It had hit single written all over it, but stalled at #60.

Instead of hiring a model for their video the brothers upped the ante as usual and made a video featuring Ron in drag performing a strip tease in a nightclub. For years, I had wrongly assumed David Lynch had directed the video for “I Predict”. He’s listed all over the internet and in books as having worked with the brothers on it. In actuality, the video was instead directed by another set of brothers, twins Douglas and Steven M. Martin.

I love this video and think it’s hilarious. Unfortunately, it also likely kept the single from becoming a bigger hit, and MTV buried it in their late night slot.

There weren’t any other singles released from the album. The title track and “Eaten By The Monster Of Love” both memorably popped up in the classic 80’s teen movie Valley Girl. “Monster” should have been a follow-up single. It has a cool hook and would have made another fun, bizarre video:

The brothers have performed the track live, as recently as 2023. I prefer the original studio version myself.

Their next album, 1983’s Sparks In Outer Space, contained their biggest hit. At the time, The Go-Go’s were a popular band, putting out classics such as “Vacation” and “Our Lips Are Sealed”. Russell briefly dated member Jane Wiedlin. A team-up was inevitable and their next single was the duet “Cool Places”.

45 sleeve for “Cool Places”. Scan is from my own collection.

This time around, the video was more Pee Wee’s Playhouse than David Lynch. Likely to garner more MTV play:

“Cool Places” was their biggest hit, taking at #49. They never topped that on Billboard, though they tried a year later with “With All My Might”.

Visually, the video is very similar to “Cool Places". I liked their 1981-1982 videos better. By this point, the band was playing it safe to gain MTV play. “With All My Might” features the brothers in a boring (for the Maels at least) homage to old Western movies while a blonde model hangs around. They were in danger of becoming sanitized.

The song is fun, though, and deserved a better fate than #104. Ron and Russell Mael were never going to break North America, they were too eccentric.

The duo recorded two more 1980’s albums before taking a break from recording. They returned in 1994, had another string of UK hits starting with the classic “When Do I Get To Sing My Way?”, and have continued to record ever since.

The brothers also worked with newer artists on a couple of occasions. 1997’s Plagarism was a collection of re-recordings that featured collaborations with Jimmy Somerville, Erasure, and Faith No More:

A string of albums followed in the 2000’s and into the 2010’s. They even scored a minor British hit in 2006 with “Perfume” from the Hello Young Lovers Album. I remember hearing this one on MySpace back in the day:

The brothers teamed up with Musings Of A Broken Record favourites Franz Ferdinand as supergroup FFS on a self-titled 2015 album:

As mentioned, they also dabbled in film with Annette and a documentary collaboration with Edgar Wright called The Sparks Brothers. They also continue to record regularly with 2023’s The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte marking a return to Island Records.

The duo were smart to take a break when they did. Changing their sound regularly and not continuing to play it safe as they started to in their bid for Stateside stardom has kept them fresh and relevant. They’re still going strong after almost 55 years of recording.

Sunday: Lea Roberts- “Laughter In The Rain”