'MAEL SUPREMACY

Since their dramatic arrival in the UK via TV screens in the early 70s, Sparks have continued to make extraordinary music on their own terms. Now they're enjoying a late-career renaissance

- Rob Hughes

It’s still an unshakable image: Sparks on Top Of The Pops in the summer of 1974, performing This Town Ain’t Big Enough For The Both Of Us, their first hit. The contrast between the two Mael brothers is striking.

In neat shirt and tie, with swept-back hair and Charlie Chaplin moustache, the immobile Ron glares out from behind his electric piano. Meanwhile, pretty-boy sibling Russell struts about in a dark suit and satin scarf, his head a tumble of falling curls. John Lennon is among the 15 million viewers watching at home. Stupefied, he phones Ringo Starr – so the legend goes – and tells him he’s just seen Marc Bolan singing with Hitler.

Then there’s the track itself. Built around a jabbing keyboard riff fed through an echo unit, strafed with gunshots and hitched to a relentless rhythm, This Town is topped by Russell’s vaulting falsetto. Lyrically it’s a Dadaist torrent of bombardiers, beating hearts and zoo animals. In the year of power cuts and the three-day week, Sparks seem like weird exotica from another universe. Their peers on tonight’s show – Bryan Ferry and Bad Company included – are rendered one-dimensional by comparison.

This Town… peaked at No.2 in the UK. Sparks’ sudden popularity was quickly compounded by another Top 10 hit, Amateur Hour, and a parent album, Kimono My House, loaded with dazzling art-pop songs that challenged convention yet were also fabulously accessible. Sparks were sensational: sharp, clever, witty and new. Their subsequent UK tour provoked hysteria wherever they went, attracting hordes of screaming girls. Serious music fans adored them too.