Frank Sinatra’s mammoth influence on Sparks
Few bands have managed to transcend trends and genre quite as successfully as Sparks. With a career spanning six decades and nearly 30 albums, the band, headed by brothers Ron and Russell Mael, are simultaneously one of the most enduring and underrated groups of all time. While Sparks has never stuck to one musical style very closely, one of the great influences that never left the pair was Frank Sinatra.
While the New Jersey crooner might not be the most obvious influence on the Sparks brothers, given that he did not write his own songs, the band paid tribute to Sinatra on their 1994 single ‘When Do I Get to Sing My Way?’. The track is a satirical take on the relationship between Ron and Russell.
In the narrative of the song, Ron is awash with jealousy since he is responsible for writing all of Sparks’ tracks, yet his brother seems to get all the credit as the lead singer. Although the brothers get along well in real life, an example to all other musical brothers (looking at you, Liam and Noel), this theme of jealousy has been common throughout a lot of Sparks’ work.
Their 1983 track ‘I Wish I Looked a Little Better’, for example, deals with Ron’s apparent frustration with Russell being viewed as a heartthrob while he is simply stuck behind a keyboard. It is this kind of humour and mystery that makes Sparks such a fan favourite. The brothers delved more into this faux sibling rivalry in the excellent Edgar Wright-directed documentary The Sparks Brothers.
The single ‘When Do I Get to Sing My Way?’ references the iconic Sinatra hit ‘My Way’, but the Rat Pack singer has much more influence over the band than simply providing a song title. Ron has previously revealed that Sinatra’s influence on him as a songwriter is huge, “He was the first person who really figured out that LPs could have a theme,” he shared, “In The Wee Small Hours Of The Morning and Only The Lonely are two concept albums in a way, when nobody else was thinking of albums as songs that were related in that way.”
Sparks are no strangers to concept albums; many of their records have maintained their own unique mood throughout. The brothers are also noted for their work in soundtracking films like Annette, showing their diverse abilities in creating a specific atmosphere within an album. Ron once again notes that this is something that Sinatra pioneered, “It was just that coolness of his thinking to realise that an LP could have one kind of mood to it through the choice of songs.”
Despite being well into the twilight of their careers, the brothers behind Sparks are still going strong. Last year’s The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte became a top ten album in the UK and reaffirmed the intense songwriting ability of Ron Mael. Their constant ability to adapt to new sounds with apparent ease means that Sparks sound as fresh today as they did upon the release of their first record back in 1971.
