Sparks, brothers Ron and Russell Mael, release ‘JanSport Backpack’, the second track from the upcoming album MAD!, and announce the album will be released May 23rd via Transgressive Records. The band also reveals full details of MAD!’s artwork, tracklisting, and formats, all available for preorder now.
Ever the masters of the musical vignette, this bittersweet, pop song portrays a fading love in Sparks’ inimitable fashion, her JanSport backpack a sad reminder of a relationship on the rocks.
Ron Mael is one of our most acutely perceptive observers of social mores. In a different discipline – dramaturg, cartoonist, novelist, cineaste, chronicler – he’d be a Moliere, a Hogarth, a Fitzgerald, an Altman, a Swift. He just happens to work within the medium of popular song. His brother Russell Mael has the asset of a talent to put those observations across in a uniquely arresting manner, captivating as a frontman and gifted with a countertenor voice of extraordinary range. The alchemy between Ron on keys and Russell on vocals – Two Hands, One Mouth, to invoke the name of one of their tours – is simply what they do. And they’ve rarely done it better than on MAD!, the band’s 28th studio album.
MAD! finds Ron and Russell examining cultural phenomena such as branded backpacks, tattoos, performative devotion (whether to a God, a lover, a celebrity or a sports team), the hegemony of banter, and the rise of influencers. The satire is never on-the-nose, always retaining enough ambiguity for the listener to fill in the blanks. And the exquisitely unusual lexicon (you won’t hear the word ‘epistemology’ on many other albums this year) and cultural references leap out on every listen.
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. The album opens with the song ‘Do Things My Own Way’, a piece of typically forward-facing progressive pop which was the album’s lead single. But it also functions as something of a manifesto for the Maels themselves. Because Sparks are a band who have always, always done things their own way.
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
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)
SPARKS MAD! TOUR DATES:
June 2025
08 – Japan, Kyoto, ROHM Theatre
10 – Japan, Osaka, Zepp Namba
12 & 13 – Japan, Tokyo, EX Theater
18 & 19 – UK, London, Eventim Apollo
21 & 22 – UK, Manchester, O2 Apollo
24 – Glasgow, Royal Concert Hall
26 – Netherlands, Haarlem, PHIL Haarlem
28 – Belgium, Brussels, Cirque Royal
30 – France, Paris, La Salle Pleyel
July 2025
01 – Germany, Cologne, Gloria-Theater
03 – Denmark, Copenhagen, The Koncerthuset
04 – Sweden, Stockholm, Grona Lund Tivoli
06 – Germany, Berlin, Uber Eats
08 – Italy, Milan, Teatro degli Arcimboldi
