He should at least have put on some make-up for the studio lights
Russell wore hotpants in the promo video too - it was a unified look for this particular single, heaven knows why...
Love the song but not a good look.
ooh look at the last little bit of this Billy Mackenzie interview by P Morley from 1982
Artists who've been influenced by Sparks?
Associates
Pulp
Morrissey
Who else?
"Love Is A Stranger" by Eurythmics could actually be a Sparks record.
ReplyDeleteI've always thought that a little bit of Sparks must have rubbed off on Queen.
ReplyDeleteI think they were more or less simultaneous on the scene.
DeleteThe Sweet felt Queen ripped them off, or at least, stole their thunder, with the clustered high harmony vocals. They were like, 'why do they have cred, and not us?". But i don't think Queen then had cred particularly - most rock critics and hip people thought they were ridiculously over the top. Nowadays of course they are Canon. Young people rate them not that far below Beatles and Bowie.
Electro Sparks tends to be overshadowed by Histrionic Sparks, but No. One In Heaven probably turned a lot of "rock" artists (Joy Division famously, but also Depeche Mode and the like) onto Giorgio Moroder, and helped pave the way for a lot of new wave/techno pop that was way more commercially successful.
ReplyDeleteAnd of course there's Rockin' Sparks, which was my personal introduction to the band, via their cameo in the movie Rollercoaster. Much of Big Beat in particular would fit right in on either of the first two Cheap Trick albums. Cheap Trick had a similar Straight/Bizarre band presentation which, although they formed much earlier, could have been influenced by Sparks. Todd Rundgren is a common denominator though he got to Sparks much earlier and Cheap Trick much later.
ReplyDelete