In my voyage through all the Sparks albums, some of which I haven’t heard in 20 or 30 years, here is my review of ‘Terminal Jive’.
1. When I’m With You
It’s…fine? 4/4 time, but too slow to be disco. Kind of plodding feeling. It’s about someone that feels better about themselves when they’re with someone else. Not exactly groundbreaking songwriting material. I guess I don’t mind this. It fades out, which seems weak for Sparks. 5/10
2. Just Because You Love Me
It’s 4/4 time, and I’m pretty sure exactly the same tempo as the song before. It’s about someone wanting someone to give it to him. Feels rapey. 3/10.
3. Rock ‘n’ Roll People in a Disco World
4/4 time. Same tempo as the other songs. I’m getting more and more bored with this album. This song is extremely underwritten. I think at least 80% of the lyrics are just the song title. When Russel sings ‘World’ it kind of rhymes with ‘Squirrel’ and I’m getting angrier every time he does it. There’s kind of a cool little break and I was expecting a key change, but it didn’t happen. Just back to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll People in a Disco Wor-rald’. I think I hate this. 2/10
4. When I’m With You (Instrumental)
Whatever.
This is almost 4 minutes long??? 2/10.
5. Young Girls
Oh. Oh….Oh, why did you do this? Ron likes to write songs from other people’s points of view, but I don’t get that feeling here. Oh, gross. I adore The Kinks. They have a song called ‘Art Lover’ that just by itself makes me take an entire point of the band’s entire rating. That’s how I feel here. 0/10. I never want to hear this again.
6. Noisy boys
It’s kind of in 12/8, which is a nice change. I think it’s my favorite song so far. I like the production on Russel’s voice, and I like the guitar tone pretty well. It’s hard to look past the fact that this song is really dumb. I have no idea what happened to the songwriting on this album. It’s like they decided not to bother. 6/10.
7. Stereo
Back to 4/4 and around 120 bpm. It’s alright. I have no idea what this song is about. I feel like in the late 70s and early 80s, people were just obsessed with the idea of stereo, I can think of dozens of songs with stereo in the title. Wasn’t there a thing called quadraphonic too at that time? Whatever. 5/10.
8. The Greatest Show on Earth
Almost done. At least this album is short. I kind of like the ‘Steady as you go she’s the greatest show’ thing that undercuts the song. It’s fine. Another 5/10.
Album rating averages to 3.375/10. Next, Whomp That Sucker.