On my voyage through all the Sparks albums, some of which I haven’t heard in 20 or 30 years, here is my review of ‘Whomp that Sucker’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Tips for Teens<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like the energy of the song. The drums are dry sounding, but no big deal. I think the lyrics are very sharp and funny, I laughed out loud at the ‘curry’ line. More guitar and less keyboard would push it over the top for me, but that’s just a personal preference. It fades out, which I don’t much care for in a Sparks song. The vocals are a chorus of Russels, which, eh, don’t much care for, but I get what they’re going for. 7\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Funny Face<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember this song from Plagiarism, which I’ve heard more recently. I like it there, and I like it here too. I might like that version a tiny bit more (maybe not\u2026I like the fact that they disguised the tragedy more on the original). This song is sonically better for me than the previous one, the instruments sound more in the same space. This is such a Sparks song. The guitar solo took me by surprise. It’s simple but fits the song. Fadeout. 8\/10<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Where’s My Girl<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is another very Sparks song, classic Russel falsetto. I’m afraid for what happens to the girl when he finds her at the end, and I like the sudden stop after that happens. 6\/10? I can already tell my number ratings are going to be all over the place. I like the song, but less than the previous two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Upstairs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More new wave sounding than the previous songs. The sounds of the bass guitar and ‘snare’ annoy me, but it was 1981, so I shouldn’t detract for that. I have no idea what this song is about. At first I thought it was about someone too into their own brain, but that kind of falls apart in the later verses. 6\/10, but a lower 6\/10 than Where’s My Girl<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. I Married a Martian<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don’t know what I think about this. I kept looking for some kind of metaphor in the lyrics, and I never did find it. Maybe I’m missing something. I don’t like this song a whole lot. 5\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. The Willys<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I remember this song. It’s silly, but I quite like it. Good sounding instrumentally. I found myself smiling through the song. I like the way Russel goes completely over the top with ‘Willys!’ in the chorus every time. An over the top Russel is a good Russel for me. It’s going to be stuck in my head all day. It fades out, but I like the way it fades out, with the instruments dropping out. 8\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
7. Don’t Shoot Me<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another fairly silly song. The keyboard solo was not great for me. I feel like I’m putting some songs down for 80’s production choices, and I really shouldn’t do that. The twist at the end was okay, but I did see it coming. 5\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
8. Suzie Safety<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Who has ideas like this? Not me, but I sort of wish I did. This is another very Sparks song. It’s very funny. This is also some very 80’s production, but I don’t find it grating like some of the earlier songs. It sounds like they mixed a whisper in with the vocal track, and it works very well. I’ll have to listen to see if they do that often; I hadn’t picked up on it before. I like this song. 7\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
9. That’s not Nastassia<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like the over the top piano and vocals. I also like the (I think) female background vocal. They don’t do that very often that I can recall. The vocals kind of drop way back in the bridge. I’m listening to an mp3, and I thought maybe there was a transcoding issue, but I dug out the CD and it does it there too. I have no idea what this song is about. Was Nastassia a real person? I like this pretty well. 6\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
10. Whacky Women<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sounds like an 80’s Cheap Trick song or something. What kind of wisdom is he giving? Did he curse? I couldn’t tell. The constant ‘Whack Whack Whack Whacky Women’ vocal is annoying. I like what Russel is doing, but I think this is my least favorite song on the album. 4\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That puts my rating of the album at 6.2\/10. It feels a little higher than that to me taken as a whole.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On my voyage through all the Sparks albums, some of which I haven’t heard in 20 or 30 years, here is my review of ‘Whomp that Sucker’ 1. Tips for Teens I like the energy of the song. The drums are dry sounding, but no big deal. I think the lyrics are very sharp and… Continue reading Whomp That Sucker – 1981<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/94"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}