Kimono My House: Sparks: Amazon.ca: Music

1. This Town Ain't Be Enough For Both Of Us

2. Amateur Hour

3. Falling In Love With Myself Again

4. Here In Heaven

5. Thank God It's Not Christmas

6. Hasta Manana Monsieur

7. Talent Is An Asset

8. Complaints

9. In My Family

10. Equator

11. Barbecutie

12. Lost And Found

Product Description

From Amazon.co.uk

Sparks have been mixing pure pop with outrageous musical experimentalism and high intelligence for almost 30 years, and Kimono My House is still their best album. If just for "This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us", one of the most startling and singular singles ever released, like a wilder and more perverse Roxy Music, or a surrealist Gilbert & Sullivan ("The thunder of stampeding rhinos/ Elephants and tacky tigers"). But "Kimono My House" is full of the same symphonic delirium, Ron Mael's sharp, funny lyrics and brother Russell's vocal acrobatics, self-consciously spectacular songs that seem to be charging in three directions at once, eruptions of extrovert eccentricity. And the fairground whirl of "Amateur Hour" offers better advice to fumbling teenage lovers than any advice column. "It's a lot like playing the violin," suggest Sparks. "You cannot start off and be Yehudi Menuhin." --Taylor Parkes

Album Description

Digitally remastered reissue of 1974 album includes two unmarked bonus tracks, 'Lost & Found' & 'Barbecutie'. 12 tracks total including 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us', which Siouxsie & The Banshees covered in 1987. Island. 1994.

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Customer Reviews

21 Reviews

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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Average Customer Review

4.9 out of 5 stars (21 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Kimono Still Classic, Jun 30 2008

By

Bertmeister (Toronto Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kimono My House (Rm) (Audio CD)

This is an album that changed my opinion of what rock should be. There were no more rules. This album has stood the test of time and for me it's still catchy, melodic, eccentric and an acquired taste. They were falsetto rock before Queen had their Bohemian Rhapsody moment. It's obvious when you play this disc that in 1974 the Mael brothers were way ahead of their time. There are many catchy tunes here but the ones that grab you are the lead off single "This Town ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us" along with "Amateur Hour","Talent Is An Asset", "Falling In Love...." and "Thank God It's Not Christmas." Give it a try. I dare you. You'll either love it or hate it...there's no in between. If you do love it, you'll do what I did....go after all their other albums (there are many more... some bad some good) to get your fix.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Come on over my house, mon amour monsieurs!, May 28 2004

By

Dario Western (Brisbane, QLD AUSTRALIA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kimono My House (Audio CD)

One of the most important albums of the 1970's taught pop kids a lesson: you can actually strike it easier with the 'difficult' third album.

As an impressionable 3-year-old back in 1974, I cowered into the sofa when seeing the Maels debut on Top of the Pops with 'This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us'. 14 years later as an impressionable teenager I bought the album and was hooked on it for months afterwards.

After two failed albums that trifled with 60's British psychedelia with sophomoric UCLA student musos, the Maels shifted to the UK to come up with a curious blending of staccato baroque riffs on a Fender Rhodes together with a tough, piledriving wall of tumbling guitars and reverbating bass that took the charts by storm. Terrorizing children with Ron Mael's Dickensian scowls and stares every time the cameras pointed to him and Russell's androgynous hybrid of Jim Morrison and Johnny Rotten, they took everything that waas taboo and sacred asbout youth culture and defaced them with a perverse sense of humour such as complaining up-the-duff girlfriends ("Complaints"), masturbation ("Amateur Hour"), the out-crowd ("Thank God It's Not Christmas"), and making fun of family orientated clout ("In My Family"). Critics raved about the album including a young Morrissey who got his first bite of the pop cherry in the NME by citing it the 'album of the year'.
30 years later, it still sounds disturbingly excellent - although it is doubtful that you'll ever get picked for 'Pop Idol' by using "This Town Ain't Big Enough" as your rehearsal number. Ah, what fools we have for the public!
After leaving the UK in 1975 to dabble with punk, MOR, disco, teen pop and electronic orchestral pop, Sparks have never attempted returning to their Brit-rock roots, but to listen to lyrics about girls growing tops to go topless in and shooing strangers away from Albert Einstein still makes a bunch of 40+ malcontents feel like they'd never left the first year of art school that sumer of '74.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Talent Is An Asset, Mar 2 2004

By

Connie Lingus "mysterious_angel" (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kimono My House (Audio CD)

Kimono My House is one of the great unknown classics of the 70's. The odd charm these songs exude is plainly evident 30 years after it's release. I, for one, have always enjoyed Russell Mael's voice and brother Ron's song writing is intelligent and funny. Very funny! I think the other band member's contributions were just as vital to the success of this album. Norman "Dinky" Diamond was voted drummer of the year in a poll conducted by Premier Drums in 1975. Martin Gordon has had a long and varied career as a producer, session musician, member of Jet & Radio Stars, and as a solo artist. Pick up his latest CD entitled "Baboon In The Basement" for further proof of his genius. He also arranged the songs on "Kimono...". Sadly, Adrian Fisher, the fantastic guitarist from these sessions, passed away in 2000. The one gripe I have about this album is that, at times, Adrian's guitar is too low in the mix. His guitar hero riffs deserve to be up front and prominent. The CD re-issue contains 2 b sides from this era that were not on the original release, "Barbecutie", a fantastic song about cannibalism with a really neat bass intro and "Lost and Found." This may have been the best album of 1974!

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Most recent customer reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The English bandmates made them great on this one
The Mael brothers came from LA to England in 1973 at the tender ages of 18 (Russell) and Ron (23). They left the States because their stuff with their American bandmates was... Read more

Published on April 16 2004

4.0 out of 5 stars 1974?
I have a hard time coming to grips with the fact that this was released when I was only 3 years old! Talk about an undated piece of work. Read more

Published on July 17 2003 by T. Nociti