Sparks: MAD!
An album review of the 2025 Sparks album, “MAD!” A near career-best from the brother Mael.
Sparks
MAD!
Transgressive
Brothers Ron (79) and Russell (76) Mael sound as good as they ever have on MAD! No mean feat! Their 27th album, and continuing the great work and goodwill that arrived on the back of the Cate Blanchett-starring video of the title track to their 2023 “comeback” —
For over 50 years, the Maels have been amusing themselves — and fans — with curious, clever pop music that is all at once a bit synth-y, a lot pastiche-y, and yet filled with their heart, soul, and utter conviction. They’re the world’s most serious novelty act.
And MAD! kicks off in such fine form with catchy mission-statement, Do Things My Own Way:
Ron’s keyboard and production ideas place this album anywhere from the mid-80s to present day. Russell’s impossibly intact voice still delights and baffles — and with the muscular approach of the touring band in support of them (Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab) there is plenty of groove too.
The puns, the humour, the silliness, the quirk — all there in the music still. And that so Sparks trick too, of taking a single phrase and applying it over and again as if to wring all meaning from it and rewrite it (JanSport Backpack).
The band toured behind this record late last year, and the new, upcoming shows will present as more of a Very Best Of set — but you’d hope to hear something at least from this record; Ron is such a prolific and still underrated songwriter. And MAD! is the latest proof that he is yet to run out of ideas.
The demented cabaret act is in full flight on I-405 Rules, quirky love songs are about as always (Hit Me Baby, My Devotion) and epic pop balladry too (Drowned In A Sea of Tears, Lord Have Mercy).
The Sparks story remains a phenomenon — a truly British/European-sounding American band that feels, somehow, like it is rewriting everything The Beach Boys ever did through the lens of Noel Coward or Cole Porter or, even, imagine “Weird AL” Yankovic without the parody.
That they can keep doing this — and being so good, album after album — has always been remarkable. But this late-career streak is like a return to their glam-era yet with no peers, no competition, no genre boundaries, and no focus other than to make the music that most pleases them.
