The girl is crying in her latte

March 5, 2023 7:27 AM

Sparks have a new single, along with a video filmed in a single take, starring the band and Cate Blanchett.
posted by Hogshead (25 comments total)

Well that was a delight!
posted by SNACKeR at 7:44 AM on March 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

That's a good companion piece to Blanchett's recent hit Apartment for sale (you're all going to hell).
posted by elgilito at 7:49 AM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Continuing my streak of having enjoyed everything I've ever seen that features the remarkable Catherine Elise Blanchett. Thank you for this. Ron and Russell have excellent taste.
posted by the sobsister at 8:19 AM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Excellent. That said I wish it was “their lattes” and not “their latte”
posted by aubilenon at 8:21 AM on March 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

A couple weeks ago, they announced their LA show on the upcoming tour -- my face was like that Vince McMahon meme:

Interested: "New Sparks Album"
Intrigued: "Tour in the summer"
Impressed: "LA Show Sunday 7/16"
Wowed: "At the Hollywood Bowl"
Ecstatic: "TMBG Opening"

Pals, everything came up Milhouse that day for me. What a glorious sequence of emotions I had in the space of about 45 seconds.
posted by tclark at 8:30 AM on March 5, 2023 [16 favorites]

aubilenon, I've tried that but I've never been able to get it to work reliably. I've decided I'm just one of those people who can only cry in one latte at a time.

If you have any tips, I guess I could give it another go.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:14 AM on March 5, 2023

Maybe the girls are all lactose intolerant? Anyway, lattes are the worst coffee beverage, so I think the problem is there.
posted by anhedonic at 9:26 AM on March 5, 2023

I should add that the last time I went to a coffee shop, an elephant shot me in my pajamas.
posted by tigrrrlily at 9:28 AM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Right in the pajamas? Ow!
posted by aubilenon at 9:34 AM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yay! Sparks!

I can't believe I've been listening to them since the 70's. First concert I ever went to.
posted by Chuffy at 9:58 AM on March 5, 2023

I love the song and I love the yellow suit.
posted by JanetLand at 10:06 AM on March 5, 2023

Long Black FTW.
Flat White for the comfort.
(will also watch anything with Cate content)
posted by phigmov at 11:54 AM on March 5, 2023

I feel like the yellow suit is a callback to Russell’s stage wear from the most recent tour.

My only complaint with the video is that Ron didn’t dance with Cate.
posted by pxe2000 at 12:20 PM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

I've long felt that Sparks and TMBG are gloriously twinned - both hugely idiosyncratic duos, both bands that people you mention them to are often surprised not only that they've made records since their perceived heyday but that they are still making records. But most of all because in both cases, the new albums are just as eccentrically wonderful as the old albums. As long as you like what they do, which I do. Very much so.
posted by Grangousier at 12:28 PM on March 5, 2023 [3 favorites]

This kinda feels like a spiritual sibling to The Florence and the Machine video with Bill Nighy.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 2:33 PM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

made records since their perceived heyday

With Sparks it's not even clear exactly when that was. They've been at the very edge of becoming mainstream for their entire career, and it's been pretty devoid of highs and lows. With TMBG, it seems you can more or less date around Flood as their most attention-getting point, but I'd be hard-pressed to argue for any particular release or series of releases as Sparks's "big one". Retrospectives usually put it around Kimono My House, I suppose, but outside of the UK "This Town" honestly didn't make much of a splash, and the rest of the album even less.
posted by jackbishop at 2:43 PM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

Some people perceive their heyday as 1974, others 1979 (or possibly when they made that record with Jane Weidlin). A lot of people seem to be aware of Sparks, but it's usually because of that moment they first saw them on television and said "What the hell?" Those of us who know, of course, are well aware that Sparks is one long, constantly moving heyday (apart from that period before Gratuitous Sax... when nothing much seemed to be happening.)
posted by Grangousier at 3:22 PM on March 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Variety has an article/interview about how the video came to happen (spoiler: Blanchett is a fan), and a bit more about what the brothers are up to.
posted by Hogshead at 3:25 PM on March 5, 2023 [2 favorites]

There’s a case to be made that Sparks’ career heyday (so far) was actually 2021 – after The Sparks Brothers came out. It was such a terrific and fun documentary that really made things click. Lots of people who’d maybe been aware of bits and pieces of the Sparks story could suddenly see it as a gloriously weird and ambitious 50-year art project: one that actually was pretty cohesive even as Ron & Russell played with glam rock, new wave, club music, orchestral pop, indie rock and everything else.

A concert I saw in 2022 was rapturous on the fan side (more so than when I’d previously seen them in 2013, though that was also great).

Love the electro buzz of this new single, and Cate’s deadpan dancing. When I saw the song title (before hearing it) I thought it might be about a young woman who was sad about a romantic breakup or whatever – though Sparks are too clever for just that. More like worldwide malaise – but at least it sounds cool, there’s still good coffee to be had, and we’re all in it together.
posted by lisa g at 4:27 PM on March 5, 2023

ooh thanks, I have now signed up for their Maeling List (ha ha) so I will know when the new album drops, I was following their Twitter but I killed my account earlier this year for the obvious reasons.
posted by egypturnash at 5:34 PM on March 5, 2023

Is this where I can talk about Annette, which is still one of the weirdest and delightful movies I have seen in a long time and they were totally shafted for the Oscars for Best Song?

At least the Césars knew what was up.
posted by Katemonkey at 1:17 AM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

I like to do the The Guardian Thursday Quiz, and Ron is an almost weekly presence, usually with a picture of him looking very disappointed in you. The answer to the questions with Ron almost always end, "And you can tell by the look on his face that Ron thinks you should have known that." This past Thursday's quiz mentioned this song, so this very timely and very cool.
posted by ceejaytee at 5:29 AM on March 6, 2023 [1 favorite]

One thing that jumped out at me from the Variety article: "they take the work seriously, but not themselves" which, I think, has always been one of the wonderful things about Sparks. They seem like some of the most contented people in the entertainment industry. It's a truism that artists have to suffer for their art, and for so many, it's either a means to an end (fame and fortune) or a white whale of its own (the constant quest for perfection), and they suffer from the ephemerality or unattainability of those goals. For the Maels, it seems like they're good with making music to make music. They want to make good music, but they're not afraid of commercial or artistic failure. That also means that they're willing to pack up and move on once they've done a thing: it's not important to them that they make the best glamrock/disco/club album possible, and they're not afraid of disappointing their glamrock/disco/club fans by doing something completely different.

AFAICT, the only actual unfulfilled ambition they had for a long time was to be seriously involved with film, and they attached themselves to a bunch of projects like Mai, The Psychic Girl and Confusion which never worked out (The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman also seemed to indicate a perennial interest in both long-form drama and in film). And with Annette, they seem to have fulfilled that goal.

(Pity they didn't get even get an Oscar nomination for "So May We Start?", though.)
posted by jackbishop at 6:50 AM on March 6, 2023

Angst in My Pants followed by In Outer Space was a heyday of sorts...at least in terms of songs that made it into regular rotation on the radio. Sparks has always been, well, Sparks. How do we even define heyday? Gilmore Girls?
posted by Chuffy at 8:36 PM on March 6, 2023

Confusion is the one I wish had been completed (or even started, really). I mean, Sparks and Tati and a tv programme attempting to broadcast live while trying not to trip over the corpse of M. Hulot. It's one of the great lost movies in my opinion.
posted by Grangousier at 9:08 AM on March 10, 2023