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 ‘Music You Can Dance To’.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think there are two versions of this album, this is probably the US issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1. Music You Can Dance To<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I like this song well enough. The synth sound probably sounded cutting edge in 1986 but it sounds very dated to me now. It’s very top-end heavy and it ends up wearing on my ear. The lyrics could use a little wit to me, but I guess he says right in there that there’s no heavy message, and boy, there isn’t. Probably fun in a club in the day, they probably wrote it to be the first song played in the night. 6\/10. I love Sparks, okay? This kind of music just isn’t very conducive to listening to at home, alone, in the middle of a pandemic, for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
2. Rosebud<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wow. I didn’t remember this song at all. It’s absolutely terrifying, and I found it very emotional. I feel the same way about the synth sounds as the prior song, but I think I love this song. One word is never enough. I need to revisit this a bunch, but 9\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
3. Fingertips<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Same as the first song, but a lot less good. I hope other people love this song, but not for me. 5\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
4. Change<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I love this song. I’m not even sure exactly why, but it always makes everything feel alright to me. Sometimes I think I like the remake better, with the banjo and violin etc, but sometimes I go this way. I like the harpsichord sounding keyboard, and I even like the super 80s keyboards in the chorus. They’re kind of fulfilling the purpose of a trumpet, and work very well for me. 10\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
5. The Scene<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another song about clubbing. I’m bored with them, but I can’t say they named this album incorrectly. The breakdown in the middle took me by surprise and was welcome. I know lyrics aren’t the point of songs like these, but I wish they had at least tried. 6\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
6. Shopping Mall of Love<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sounds like a ‘Flight of the Conchords’ song. ‘Tonight we gonna make love\u2026you know how I know? ‘Cause it’s Wednesday’. I don’t know if they were trying to make this funny\u2026but I think it’s really funny. Yeah! 7\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
7. Modesty Plays (New Version)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Was there an old version? I did ask for dance lyrics that weren’t about dancing and being at a club, and here it is. So little low-end on this album. Same as the last album, I notice it a little at first, and more and more as it goes on. I sometimes wonder if it’s the CD transfer; they weren’t that great at that at first. The song is fine. 6\/10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
8. Let’s Get Funky<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Well well, Russel is singing like he’s a trailhand in the old west or something. I’m guessing they were looking for some sort of old\/new juxtaposition with the ‘modern’ feel of the song. It works for me, strangely. I have no idea how to rate this, it’s so whacked, but quite enjoyable. 7\/10 I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn’t think I’d like this album very much, and it’s not in my top 5 Sparks albums or anything, but I enjoyed it quite a lot. They seemed like they had a vision with this one, and succeeded at what they were trying to do. Too many straight up dance songs for me, but hey\u2026that music isn’t written for me anyway. Album rating is 7\/10. Next up, Interior Design.<\/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 ‘Music You Can Dance To’. I think there are two versions of this album, this is probably the US issue. 1. Music You Can Dance To I like this song well… Continue reading The Best of Sparks: Music You can Dance To – 1986<\/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-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","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=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hearthfireband.com\/sparks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}