❉ Sparks’ acclaimed new album MAD! available now on new label home Transgressive Records.
This week (Friday May 23rd, 2025) Sparks, brothers Ron and Russell Mael, released their acclaimed new studio album, MAD!, on Transgressive Records.
MAD! opens with the song ‘Do Things My Own Way’, a piece of typically forward-facing progressive pop that functions as something of a manifesto for the Maels themselves. Because Sparks are a band who have always, always done things their own way. ‘Drowned In A Sea Of Tears’, ‘JanSport Backpack’, ‘My Devotion’ and album closer ‘Lord have Mercy’ – heartfelt observations of enduring or fading love – sit alongside an ode to a freeway in ‘I-405 Rules’, the frustration of a ‘Long Red Light’ and the motivational opus of ‘Don’t Dog It’.
If the world is a café, its ridiculous patrons babbling ridiculously all day long, then Ron Mael is the guy on his own in the corner that you don’t notice, quietly sipping his coffee. But he’s watching, listening, making notes. Those notes become songs for his band, the legendary Sparks, to be sung by his brother Russell in his unmistakeable falsetto.
Despite the efforts of Edgar Wright’s superb 2021 documentary The Sparks Brothers, which introduced the duo to a wider audience than ever before, the exact creative dynamic between the siblings remains inscrutable, as mysterious and unknowable as their private lives.
Released in May 2025 on new label home Transgressive Records, the band’s 28th studio album MAD!, finds Ron and Russell examining cultural phenomena such as branded backpacks, tattoos and the hegemony of banter. (‘Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab’ seems to be inspired by the modern-day parable of fake German heiress Anna Delvey, or at least someone very similar: “Will you visit me in Rykers?”)
Current radio single ‘Drowned In A Sea Of Tears’, one of MAD!‘s standout tracks, is a minor key mini-tragedy about the perils of emotional continence, of the stiff upper lip, of keeping it all in. Its female protagonist keeps her emotional landscape guarded behind high walls, and its male narrator is unable to be her saviour. Unusually, for a Sparks song, there is no punchline, no twist in the tale.
Musically there are nods to New Wave, Synthpop, Art Rock and Electronic Opera – all genres Sparks had hands in pioneering, or straight-up invented. When you hear echoes of other artists, from Air to Shostakovich, you remind yourself that they’re all people who Sparks influenced in the first place. (Well, maybe not Shostakovich.)
Ultimately, however, MAD! is a modern record, which belongs in, and speaks to, the modern world. Which is all the more remarkable when you consider the vintage of its creators.
Most acts, by the time they’ve been making music together across seven different decades, would have slowed to a crawl, creakily playing the oldies on the heritage circuit and releasing nothing more modern than the occasional Greatest Hits collection.
Sparks aren’t most acts. If anything, their rate of productivity has sped up in recent years: since the millennium the duo have released eight new studio albums (including, in 2024, the original Sparks 2013 album recording of Annette), a radio opera (The Seduction Of Ingmar Bergman), a side-project (Franz Ferdinand collaboration FFS), a live album, a film musical (2021’s Annette, which won a ‘Best Director award for Leos Carax and the Best Original Score at the César Awards for the Maels), and several compilations (notably 2019’s career-spanning Past Tense), toured the world numerous times, as well as appearing in the aforementioned The Sparks Brothers. Their laurels remain resoundingly unrested-upon.
Very few artists have had as much influence on decades of popular music, or remained as committed to artistic innovation, as Sparks. In the decades since their Todd-Rundgren produced debut in 1972 the duo has moved through numerous genres and phases, including Art-Glam, Neo-Charleston, electronic disco (essentially inventing the synth duo), synthpop, sampler opera and movie musicals. The only common threads, throughout each era, are the exquisite wit of Ron’s lyrics and the complexity of his arrangements, and Russell’s heavenly voice.
Belatedly, however, the whole world has woken up to Ron and Russell’s genius. They have become regular visitors to the upper echelons of the charts: curiously, the last three Sparks albums (2017’s Hippopotamus, 2020’s A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip and 2023’s The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte) all reached No.7 in the UK. It would be a surprise if MAD! didn’t do the same, or even better.
And, after all these years, they continue to break new ground. Their 2025 tour – with tickets now available here – the first leg of which begins on 8 June in Japan, ends on 8 July in Milan. Although Russell performed in Italy once as part of a Sgt Pepper anniversary concert and both brothers played there with FFS, this will be the first-ever Italian Sparks gig.
MAD! Tracklisting:
1. Do Things My Own Way
2. JanSport Backpack
3. Hit Me, Baby
4. Running Up A Tab At The Hotel For The Fab
5. My Devotion
6. Don’t Dog It
7. In Daylight
8. I-405 Rules
9. A Long Red Light
10. Drowned In A Sea Of Tears
11. A Little Bit Of Light Banter
12. Lord Have Mercy
MAD! physical formats – buy here
● CD
● Cassette
● Black vinyl LP
● Lenticular gatefold sleeve with blue vinyl LP
● Deluxe triple gatefold edition with red vinyl LP and CD (exclusive to store.allsparks.com)
MAD! Tour Dates
This summer and autumn Sparks will be touring Japan, UK, Europe and North America: Tickets now available here.
Sun. June 8 – Kyoto, JP @ ROHM Theatre
Tue. June 10 – Osaka, JP @ Zepp Namba
Thu. June 12 – Fri. June 13 – Tokyo, JP @ EX Theater
Wed. June 18 – Thu. June 19 – London, UK @ Eventim Apollo
Sat. June 21 – Sun. June 22 – Manchester, UK @ O2 Apollo
Tue. June 24 – Glasgow, UK @ Royal Concert Hall [SOLD OUT]
Thu. June 26 – Haarlem, NL @ PHIL Haarlem
Sat. June 28 – Brussels, BE @ Cirque Royal
Mon. June 30 – Paris, FR @ La Salle Pleyel
Tue. July 1 – Cologne, DE @ Live Music Hall
Thu. July 3 – Copenhagen, DK @ The Koncerthuset
Fri. July 4 – Stockholm, SE @ Grona Lund Tivoli
Sun. July 6 – Berlin, DE @ Uber Eats
Tue. July 8 – Milan, IT @ Teatro degli Arcimboldi
Sat. July 12 – Bilbao, ES @ Bilbao BBK
Tue. July 15 – Dublin, IE @ National Stadium
Wed. July 16 – Dublin, IE @ National Stadium
Fri. July 18 – Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh Playhouse
Sat. July 19 – Wolverhampton, UK @ The Halls
Fri. Sept. 5 – Atlanta, GA @ Tabernacle
Mon. Sept. 8 – Philadelphia, PA @ Keswick Theatre
Tue. Sept. 9 – Washington, DC @ Lincoln Theatre
Thu. Sept. 11 – Boston, MA @ Berklee Performance Center
Fri. Sept. 12 – Brooklyn, NY @ Kings Theatre
Sun. Sept. 14 – Columbus, OH @ The Athenaeum Theatre
Mon. Sept. 15 – Cleveland, OH @ TempleLive at Cleveland Masonic
Wed. Sept. 17 – Toronto, On @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre
Fri. Sept. 19 – Chicago, IL @ Riot Fest
Sat. Sept. 20 – St. Paul, MN @ Fitzgerald Theater
Tue. Sept. 23 – Vancouver, BC @ Vogue Theatre
Wed. Sept. 24 – Seattle, WA @ Moore Theatre
Fri. Sept. 26 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall
Sat. Sept. 27 – San Francisco, CA @ Golden Gate Theatre
Mon. Sept. 29 – El Cajon, CA @ The Magnolia
Tue. Sept. 30 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Greek Theatre
❉ MAD! – buy here
❉ MAD! Tour Dates – tickets now available here.
❉ Further information on MAD! and Sparks is available here: Official Website | Instagram | YouTube | Threads | Facebook | X
❉ News source: Republic Media. Photo Credit: Sparks 2025 press shots by Munachi Osegbu.
❉ We Are Cult is not responsible for the content of this news release.
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