Sparks share new song ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’
Later this year, American pop rock icons Sparks will be releasing their 25th studio album, The Girl is Crying in Her Latte. The LP will be the band’s first since signing to Island Records last year and their first since they experienced a major bump in their popularity thanks to their co-writing credits on the 2021 film Annette and their profiling in Edgar Wright’s 2022 documentary The Sparks Brothers.
Describing the upcoming album, the band calls The Girl is Crying in Her Latte “as bold and uncompromising as anything we did back then, or for that matter, anytime throughout our career.” Sparks are currently in the process of writing a new musical film for Focus Features entitled X Crucior, but somehow the Mael Brothers still have enough time to focus on their day jobs. It’s admirable, really.
Today, we’re getting our first taste of the new album with the release of the LP’s title track, ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’. A buzzy electronic track that proves that the Maels are still at the forefront of sonic experimentation, ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’ fits right into Sparks’ history of atypical art rock. Why is this girl crying in her coffee? It’s anyone’s guess, and Sparks don’t really seem as concerned about why she’s being emotional as much as they are with connecting it to a bigger concern.
“So many people are crying in their latte,” Russell Mael observes with a somewhat indifferent detachment. For a singer who loves to explore the full range of his voice, Mael stays relatively static on ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’, letting Ron Mael’s churning keyboards carry most of the melodic work on the track. While it probably won’t do much to move their legacy one way or another, ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’ is an admirable addition to Sparks’ massive catalogue.
Even better, the upcoming accompanying video features Cate Blanchett, the odds-on favourite to take home this year’s Academy Award for Best Actress. “We met Cate Blanchett in Paris at the César Awards last year, little knowing that a year later, one of the great actors of our time (and a splendid person!) would graciously consent to lending her bootie-shaking skills to the first video from our new album, The Girl is Crying in Her Latte,” the brothers explained in a statement. “Dreams really do come true. We will sleep well tonight knowing that forever we can say we co-starred in a film with Cate Blanchett!”
Check out the video for ‘The Girl is Crying in Her Latte’ down below. The Girl is Crying in Her Latte is set for a May 26th release.
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