Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Music 10 Great Late-Career Records
Posted by Jeff Klingman on Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 2:10 PM
Page 11 of 11
Sparks - Lil' Beethoven
While a body finally matching an old soul is compelling, in the end, and even from old hands, new ideas are preferred. Ron and Russell Mael, who've been continuously recording as Sparks since 1971, have built a gloriously bizarre temple to cult-pop of all sorts, from sugar-sweet glam rock to coked-out-to-beejezus Italo disco. 2002's Lil' Beethoven was mainly a turn from synth-pop to mock-operatic classical piano. But check out the song above, a brilliantly titled and acid-strength "Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls", to catch them roughly a decade ahead of Sleigh Bells in smuggling hair metal riffs into indie-pop, which is fairly radical even now (Caution: They may not have looked as good in denim.)
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