VIA PRESS RELEASE | “In any sane universe, academic studies would be devoted to Ron and Russell Mael, as they are to Dylan, Bowie or The Beatles. Municipal buildings and parks would be named after them. Statues would be erected in their honor. In the mind of the convert, Sparks are that significant.” —Simon Price
BMG announces the release of a career-spanning collection by the provocateurs of pop—Sparks. Masters of reinvention, with an unappeasable ambition and a ravenous hunger for the now, Sparks—brothers Ron and Russell Mael—have been creating eye-poppingly brilliant pop music for more than 50 years. From 1967’s “Computer Girl” (recorded under the name Urban Renewal Project) to 2017’s “Check Out Time 11AM” (from the Hippopotamus sessions) Past Tense: The Best Of Sparks is an immaculate lesson in how to stay consistently interesting for fifty years.
With sleeve-notes by Simon Price, each track is hand-picked by Ron and Russell to best epitomise the era of Sparks from which they are drawn—forerunners of art rock, inventors of the synth duo, masters of new wave pop, Europop experimentalists and self-revisionists, in the 21st century they pioneered the electronic opera before delivering 2017’s pop masterpiece Hippopotamus.
Ron and Russell are currently putting the finishing touches to their new studio album, due for release in 2020. The ineluctable allure of Sparks will also be presented to the world in the as-yet-untitled documentary by the British film director Edgar Wright; meanwhile filming commences this month on Annette—the movie musical written by Sparks, directed by Leos Carax, and starring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard.
