GRATUITOUS SAX & SENSELESS VIOLINS
Sparks
•Crossover Prog
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3.30
| 30 ratings | 3 reviews | 7% 5 stars
Good, but non-essential |
Studio Album, released in 1994 Songs / Tracks Listing 1. Gratuitous Sax (0:31) - Russell Mael / vocals
Artwork: Louis Flanigan, Alexandra Jugovic and Eike Konig and to Quinino for the last updates Edit this entry |
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SPARKS Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins ratings distribution
(30 ratings)
Essential: a masterpiece of progressive rock music(7%)Excellent addition to any prog rock music collection(27%)Good, but non-essential (27%)Collectors/fans only (23%)Poor. Only for completionists (17%)
SPARKS Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins reviews
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Collaborators/Experts Reviews
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator
Fortunately Mael brothers came to their senses and returned to music after a 6 years hiatus with another landmarks of an album Gratuitous Sax And Senseless Violins! I guess that it's safe to say that a break from music really got their creativity going and even though many people might dismiss this album for being merely a record of its time, with inspiration clearly borrowed from popular synthpop acts like Pet Shop Boys and Erasure, this is easily one of the most entertaining albums of the '90s!
Just look at this hilarious album cover and tell me that you're not even a bit intrigued of listening to it? The album is literally filled with great singles like When Do I Get To Sing "My Way, (When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing and Now That I Own The BBC. Luckily even the album tracks are equally as entertaining. Two tracks that always are high on my playlist are the completely hilarious I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car and the surprisingly energetic album closer Let's Go Surfing.
Sparks only released one proper new release in the '90s (not counting the remix album Plagiarism) and so they really made this one count! Gratuitous Sax And Senseless Violins is an excellent album and another career highlight for Sparks. Luckily this was only the beginning of a new stroke of genius for the duo.
***** star songs: Gratuitous Sax (0:31) When Do I Get To Sing 'My Way' (4:37) I Thought I Told You To Wait In The Car (4:20) Let's Go Surfing (5:02)
**** star songs: When I Kiss You ( I Hear Charlie Parker Playing) (5:13) Frankly, Scarlett, I Don't Give A Damn (5:03) Now That I Own The BBC (4:58) Tsui Hark (4:31) The Ghost Of Liberace (4:15) Senseless Violins (0:50)
*** star songs: Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil (5:37)
PROG REVIEWER
It definitely helps that the album's first "real" song (I'm disregarding the silly jokes "Gratuitous Sax" and "Senseless Violins" which open and close the album, even if they're a delight and I wouldn't want to hear the album without them) is the group's best since the 70s. "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'?" is a MONSTER of a great pop anthem, with lyrics about the regret that comes from always doing things the way other people expect of you, great keyboard parts on top of the generic techno beat, and a set of glorious melodies. I actually heard this song long after I heard most great Sparks songs, largely because its reputation was so impeccable that I wanted to reserve one last potential treat from the band for as long as I reasonably could, and it's every bit as great as I'd have hoped at the time. If you like Sparks and haven't heard this song yet, please please please find it and listen to it.
It's very easy, after the great opening track, to frame this album as one great track plus a bunch of techno blah, but that's not really fair. What strikes me most about this album is that, once I get beyond the techno aspects, I feel like I can sense the band's actual personality for the first time in a while. The lyrics tend to be genuinely clever and goofy, there's a lot of fun had with layering Russell's vocals, there are some ridiculous (in a good way) faux-operatic moments, there's some variety in the keyboard sounds, and there are clever and unconventional twists in the chord sequences. In other words, I feel like I'm actually listening to a Sparks album. "I Thought I Told You to Wait in the Car" (a lot of monologue interspersed with singing the title in the most overly dramatic way imaginable) and "Tsui Hark" (a drone with sporadic speaking by film director Tsui Hark) largely pass me by (though I kinda like some of the angrier beats in the former), but the rest is delightful. It doesn't get quite the same praise as "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'?" does, and the idea of Russell Mael rapping is a little unsettling, but the chorus of "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" is glorious, and it helps me like the song almost as much as the more famous track that comes before it. I'm also quite the fan of "Now That I Own the BBC" (a lyrical throwback to the absurdity of "I Bought the Mississippi River" with a very playful tune) and "Let's Go Surfing" (with some terrible keyboard sounds playing beautiful keyboard parts while Russell sings lyrics that end up sounding majestic in context).
The other tracks are good enough. "Frankly, Scarlett, I Don't Give a Damn" and "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil" are each mournful drones, the former featuring a nagging keyboard line echoed by Russell's "doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo" and the latter featuring an atmospheric-as-hell combination of Russell's normal voice and falsetto in the "chorus." Finally, "The Ghost of Liberace" is dinky silliness, but it's dinky silliness in a way that takes me back to the band's peak era, especially in the goofy chorus line of "The ghost of Liberace still has that mystique/If he were alive he'd now be at his peak" or in the "Sometimes he blinds the drivers with his shiny suits/They see that smile and they laugh at him, he don't shoot" couplet.
It would have been very easy for the band to just give up after their flameout in the 80s, but I'm glad they had the desire and material for a comeback. If you're not the kind who minds the kind of production approach they took, you might even love this album, but all Sparks fans should definitely hear it.
Latest members reviews
MAKE OF IT WHAT YOU WILL Sparks is a pop-rock band with progressive tendencies, notably employing unorthodox lyrics, unusual song structures, and theatrical/operatic elements. They have a tendency to reinvent themselves periodically. This album, Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins, is from t ... (read more)
Report this review (#2504437) | Posted by PlanetRodentia2 | Thursday, February 11, 2021 | Review Permanlink
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