Sparks (1974) At Home, At Work, At Play - LOST 70s GEMS

Sparks' second album release of 1974 is chocked full of Elizabethan and horror schlock styled grand guignol of theatre and operatic lead vocals, playing alongside prog and pop rock dynamics. However unlike prior albums this one has a very 'samey' feel to all the songs never really breaking from Ron Mael's effete vocal stylings which takes the max, meanwhile the cascading pianos are less interesting or technical here, they also overdo the opera on this album. Propaganda suffers form feeling too similar to the Kimono album but also too similar to each other, with many of the songs set to the same structure and tempo.
 There are a few interesting moments such Achoo, a track about catching a cold which starts with a treacly, artificially reverbed piano notes and Kraftwerk like bass parts before diverging into a standard Roxy Music styled number with 'atchoo' call and responses and hand-clap laden power pop. But by this point the lead vocals are just too distracting, similar to how old Jim dandy Mangrum's vocals got on Black Oak Arkansas's releases around the same time; what was once fresh is now stale; on a side note, remind me to go out a get some bread. Who Don't Like Kids is an odd tune with a very echoey, horror show multi-tracked intro followed by some incandescent harpsichord fills but again the track wears thin. However Bon Voyage has more emotion in the song as Russell's singin of the title is loftily delivered, while the rest of the track is a mix of Napoleon like posturing reminding me of Abba's European bubblegum. Marry Me is a lilting organ tune starting with the plea of "Someone will let me out" in what is a sweeter, poppier number that doesn't get reduced to silly, haughty refrains but some genuine insight not hammed up unlike almost the rest of the album.

The two best tunes, or only good tunes are At Home, At Work, At Play which is distinguished by a thrilling hard guitar/vocal interplay, as crunching guitars strike like a Beethoven symphony switching with Russell's determined vocals; the other tune is Don't Leave Me Alone With Her a supersonic pomp rocker with wailing operatic vocals which reveals so much of their inevitable influence on Queen and 10cc.