Indiscreet

I found a few albums under a built in drawer in our house in Minnesota where I spent my grade school/Junior High years. The ones that stood out were Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon, Bachman-Turner Overdrive's first album and Sparks Propaganda. Exposure to Sparks changed my life like records often do when you're young and searching for something to grasp upon. I bought every album of Sparks I could find and continue to do so today. The first one I got was in a cut out bin and it was Indiscreet, their 1975 follow up to Propaganda. Produced by Tony Visconti it was a total array of different musical styles starting with piano handclaps multiple vocals of "Hospitality on Parade", a song about the Service Industry and its roots in indentured servitude that takes three minutes before an electric guitar appears and rocks to the finish. "But I want a better selection/It's larger but poorer outside" goes "Happy Hunting Ground"  a ditty about art of picking up (It's fair, fair game inside) and returning again the next day for fresh game. By the time the classic pun of "Without Using Hands" and its plot of a bombing at the Ritz (Only the manager suffered but at least his face looks swell/The manager is going to live his entire life without using hand) you relish in its power with its whisper away ending chant of without using hands. Then it's full on marching band of "Get In The Swing" and quick conversation with God (Hello down there/This is your creator with a brief questionnaire/Hello up there/I don't have time for questionnaires). A string quartet plays "Under the Table with Her" because "Diner for twelve is now dinner for ten/Because I'm under the table with her. I would sing "How Are You Getting Home?" as I walked home from school, it was such a rocker that I could sing it with abandon. It seemed to be a sequel of sorts to "Thanks But No Thanks" from Propaganda about stranger danger.
Silliness starts side two with "Pineapple" (fulfills every need) but really it spouts the benefits of this wonder fruit (Ship some to the Alpine Skiing Team). "Tits" is another game changer in my world a song about confronting an affair via a bar conversation (Drink Harry Drink/Until we can't see no more) and it's harpsichord refrain of "How well I know Tits were once a source of fun and games at home/But now she says tits are only there to feed our little Joe so that he'll grow into a man". This song opened my eyes to plots in songs which made me really chew into The Who's Tommy. "It Ain't 1918" has a 1920's feel to it yet it's about the mob not allowing self expression (It ain't 1918 for us or for you/If we can't enjoy it then neither will you). Makes think now about all the hipsters with their civil war haircuts and coiffed clothes, what a mob that turned out to be...it's a no end in sight like the lumberjack plaids of the grunge years. I really love the music of "The Lady is Lingering" from the guitar lines to the drums so much that used to call one of my best friends LingerLi. "You'll love it I know it/I know what you like" says "In The Future" a song that should a been a hit but breaks into falsetto and scared everyone before the advent of disco. It ends abruptly into the 1930's stylings of "Looks,Looks,Looks" with hilarious fashion line "Spot her error". The Mael brothers who are Sparks were Sears catalogue models when they were children so they have a keen sense of fashion if to a fault. Ron the keyboardist had a hitler mustache and Russel the singer a long curled mane of black hair. The album ends strong with "Miss the Start, Miss the End" , you know this couple who believe "They don't need the total picture/Just a drawing of each other/Hung inside their bungalow/Where wondrous things are discovered" with us being this ones who "must see how it all starts and ends/And tell them what they missed once again". This is one of my favorite Sparks records partly because of when I got it but mainly because this was the final record with Trevor White on guitar whose contribution became clearer after he wasn't in the band. Sparks has gone through many metamorphoses, I remember buying Number One Song in Heaven and being in shock with it's 'I Feel Love' Giorgio Moroder production. Sparks like the Swans define a certain time in my life and since both bands continue to produce I continue to continue (to be continued).

NOTE: although I wrote this on Sept 3, it did not post correctly so repost but I will do my thirty album thirty days duty.