Ten Essential Sparks Albums!

Background: I love Sparks.  They are totally unlike almost all of the other groups I listen to – the Stones, AC/DC, Ramones, Jett, and variants thereof.  Sparks are led by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, and they’ve been producing music together for over 35 years.  People often ask me which Sparks albums they should get to acquaint themselves with the music.  Well, a few albums represented key turning points for the band, or were of such extremely high quality, that they could be deemed “essential” and therefore top the list. So from their 22 albums, here’s my list of ten essentials!  The first seven were highly significant with respect to Sparks’ evolution over the past 40 years.  Three others are discussed because of their extremely high quality, even if they didn’t represent “turning points” per se.