Sparks Have Gone MAD!!

Introduction

Although this should be in BEAT, there is a six-hundred-word minimum in that community, and although I am down as a Top Creator there, I haven't had a Top Story there for years, so I don't feel I am doing anything wrong by putting this in CRITIQUE.

Nine of the forty-nine Vocal Communities have a zero word limit, so I don't know why they don't drop the limits for all of the communities, because, like this article I am using a no-minimum community to publish this article, but this is not a CRITIQUE of Vocal's word requirements, it is an appreciation of the excellent new Sparks album MAD!

However, as this piece has gone on, I can hit he six hudred word BEAT minimum, although I do suppose this is also a very positive CRITIQUE of the album.

And so onto the album

MAD!

Yesterday I went to Beyond Vinyl to see df there was any second-hand vinyl as well as getting a decent number of steps in

I couldn't find anything, but as I was leaving, I noticed the new Sparks album MAD!, on CD. This is their 28th Studio album (I don't think they have done a live album, although they do play live, and I must get to see them).

I am a great fan of the band and my favourite album of theirs is probably Li'l Beethoven", which I covered here.

And then this, which featured their debut blockbuster "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" from "Kimono My House".

But on to "MAD!", you can listen to all the songs on Bandcamp, so if you can see the play button in the bottom left-hand corner, you should be able to listen to the song.

Sparks wanted this to be their first Number One album, and so they have gone into full-on promotion mode with signed copies and special editions

Since I bought the album, I am on my fourth playthrough of it, and that seldom happens with any new album that I get.

Almost all the songs feel familiar, although I have not heard anything from the album before putting it on my player.

So here are a few songs that I particularly love, although I love the whole album.

I love the title of this one, so madly clever, almost like something Oscar Wilde or Gilbert and Sullivan would have come up with.

The construction of all the songs is stunning and like nothing you have heard before, well, nothing that I have heard before. The orchestration throughout the album propels it into the realms of the absolutely magnificent.

The orchestration on "I-405 Rules" almost makes me think of Mozart ("Overture" to "Marriage of Figaro") and is an extremely lively piece around halfway through the album.

This is a gorgeous goodnight message and is the penultimate song on the album. I feel that my life would be a littl less perfect without this song in my life, so its existence makes my life a little more perfect.

This beauty is the closer to the album, with some wonderful lines:

"Lord have mercy

Dry all our tears

Save us, dear Lord, from prophets of fear and doom"

Conclusion

This is almost like finding an amazing new artist, except that Sparks are one of my favourite artists. I have just included a few songs, but I think they are all playable on Bandcamp (who have some really big hitters on board now).

Thank you so much for reading and listening, and this, in my humble opinion, is an amazing album.

I do not play albums four times in a row, end to end, unless they are very special, and "MAD!" is very special.