4 posts tagged “sparks”

I recently burned a new disc for me to listen to on my way to and from work.  (I'd been getting slightly sick of the old one, though it was a very good mix of albums, as it turned out.)  Anyway, one of the albums burned-and-shuffled on the mp3 disc is Andy Prieboy's Sins Of Our Fathers.  I actually haven't heard this album before, I'd ripped it when Aila wanted to play a cut from it on the radio show I used to do for Steve.Fm, 50 Skidillion Watts Of Good Will.  I really dug the track she chose ("Who Do You Think We're Coming For"), and I have been digging his work with Wall Of Voodoo lately, so I figured it'd be a safe bet that I would dig the album, AND it'd give me an excuse to finally listen to the damn thing. 

SO, ANYWAY -- I was on my way to work, and this song came on, and I couldn't figure out who it was -- it almost had a Scissor Sisters vibe (for a minute I wondered if I'd put Ta-Dah on and forgot -- by the way, I've finally come around on them, sorry I was late to that party), but I couldn't place it.  I liked the really strange disco-ish feel to it, and the lyrics.  I did a google search for the lyrics as soon as I arrived at work, but no dice.  I'd actually _forgotten_ I'd put the Andy Prieboy album on the disc and was trying to figure it out -- none of the other acts (Chumbawamba, Sufjan Stevens, Rilo Kiley, the Minus 5, Cracker) I knew I'd put on fit at all -- about the closest was maaaaybe Republica, like, perhaps that one cut from the other album that I had downloaded but listened to only once or so.  (Speaking of Republica, anyone catch the mention of them on this week's Venture Brothers?  The Monarch claimed that when they first met, Dr. Girlfriend looked like Saffron from Republica.)  But anyway, so about halfway through my busride home, another Andy Prieboy cut came on, and I realized it pretty much had to be him, but I still wanted to know what the cut WAS -- and after all, if it was indeed him; the vocals didn't have his usual almost-kinda-Stan-Ridgway-kind-of-sound... I suppose I could have dropped in another song by accident or somethin'.  So, I got home, ran up to look, and it's this one.  So, here.  Enjoy this song, because I did.

Since it's Halloween and all, I figured I might as well post a halloweenish song!  This is a not terribly inspired choice, but it is a wicked awesome song, so I'm gonna go with it, because I saw it on a LJ post comment off of this post by calamityjon, whose LJ you should probably be reading anyway, but whatever!  Someone mentioned this song, and then included a note along the lines of "even though it sucks", then clarified that they weren't being clever, they actually didn't like this song.  Which is strange, because it's really, really awesome.  I am surprised that folks don't like it.  Oh well!  Their loss, i suppose!  But anyway, if you don't agree with that dude, you win, and you win the opportunity to listen to this song now!  Hooray!  It is the best prize ever. 

Is there anything more misguided than a greatest hits package where the band re-records all the songs?  What about when a band re-records all of the songs for a greatest hits package... and it WORKS?  Plagiarism is probably the only album on the face of the earth where that holds true, and, well, here's a cut from it.  This Town is one of Sparks' biggest hits, particularly in the UK, and, I dare say, that the new version is much, much better.  They actually recorded this one for Plagiarism TWICE, once alone and once with Faith No More backing them (and with, of course, fellow vocal ninja Mike Patton sharing the vocal duties with Russel Mael).  I tend to prefer this one, but, well, seriously, either one is suitably good.  Sadly, this album is out of print, but you can probably still find it available online.  It's definitely worth it.  Believe me, this is NOT a fluke good track.  If anything, there's a fluke BAD track.  Only I can't think of what it would be.  So there isn't really any flukes at all.  Except for, well, the entire album.

This comes from "Weird Al" Yankovic's brand new record, Straight Outta Lynwood, which comes out today, actually.  This song is one of his originals (which comes with a pretty grand video on the DVD side of the DualDisc), and I'm mainly putting it up here because -- well, I'm not sure, but I THINK it's supposed to be a Sparks style parody.  It's got a lot of the similar sounds and the rapid-fire lyrics, however, there's not much in the falsetto department, which one would think would be a hallmark of a Sparks parody -- but perhaps Al thought'd be too obvious or somethin'.  Or maybe it's NOT a Sparks parody.  So, hey, whaddya'll think? Sparks or no?