Sparks

Sparks are Ron and Russell Mael, brothers who formed the band in the late 1960s in Pacific Palisades, west Los Angeles — initially under the name Halfnelson before adopting Sparks in 1972. Their career spans many strands of pop and rock: from early art-pop and glam rock to a synthetic new wave, and from the 2000s onward a more orchestral, repetitive style of songwriting. Their first major turning point came in the UK with Kimono My House (1974) and the single This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us, where Russell Mael’s high tenor and Ron Mael’s highly structured keyboard work established an instantly identifiable aesthetic. After a rockier phase in the mid-1970s, Sparks moved into electronic music with Giorgio Moroder on No. 1 in Heaven (1979), a pivotal record in their shift to synth-pop. The duo continued to reinvent their formats and styles — oscillating between oblique pop, disco, electronic music and almost theatrical song constructions, notably on Lil’ Beethoven (2002). Sparks also collaborated with Franz Ferdinand on the FFS project in 2015, wrote the songs for the film Annette in 2021, and were the subject of the documentary The Sparks Brothers that same year. More recently, Sparks released The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte (2023) and Mad! (2025).