When I first saw Sparks on Top of the Pops music show as a young lad I couldn't figure out why Ron had a Hitler mustache, and over subsequent years I still couldn't figure it out. It was too macabre to be a gimmick but it never went away.
I also assumed they were British as did many in the music industry, so I was on to something.
Then a couple of years ago I was noodling about on Youtube and I rediscovered them. I Started to listen to more of their work, and for every hour I put in they became increasingly more important. I came to realise their work was genius level.
Visually, lyrically and musically.
They're Brechtian but instead of a play for a couple of hours, their entire career over 5 decades plus is one long performance that always delivers the same values with ongoing experimentation and reinvention.
Just as I was getting into them in a big way they released a track with a video of the brothers and Cate Blanchett. It was terrific and as I'd caught on to their ouvre of work it made perfect sense from the first listen, and so I wrote about it last April.
This Documentary is very good and stitched together a few parts of their story I wasn't so familiar with, as well as confirming my observations from quite a few reputable music industry voices in this production.
