Sparks

Ron and Russ Mael look back at their 20 (soon to be 21) album career. Interview by Paul Lester

Few bands get to record 20 albums, and fewer still get to perform them back to back live. In fact, no band ever has… until now. In May, Sparks – America’s Gilbert & George a.k.a. the world’s finest ever glam-turned- synthpop-turned-new-wave absurdist art-rock conceptualists - undertake what they rightly describe as “a mammoth, colossal challenge”: a series of performances of their 20 albums in their entirety over 20 nights at London’s Islington Academy, culminating on 13 June with a 21st date at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, when audiences will be able to hear for the first time their 21st album.

To celebrate these historic event-gigs, Ron and Russell Mael talk exclusively to Record Collector about each and every one of those 20 albums (Ron does the first 10 while Russell does albums 11 to 20), and hint at the direction they’ve taken on their 21st. “We’re still trying to be audacious,” they say...

by Paul Lester
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