Sparks turn to One Thousand and One Nights for “Scheherazade,” one of the most atmospheric and divisive tracks on Balls.

We discuss its slow-building hip-hop-influenced beat, dramatic strings, understated piano and Tammy Glover’s live drum fills, along with Amelia Cohn’s brief spoken contribution. For some of us, the combination creates one of the album’s most sophisticated and beautiful deep cuts; for others, the production feels too tied to the late 1990s and never quite comes together.

Lyrically, the song retells Scheherazade’s nightly struggle to remain alive by keeping the king entertained with new stories. We also consider a more self-referential interpretation: Sparks as the storyteller, continually inventing something new to hold the attention of their audience and the music industry.

Rarely performed and largely overlooked since the Balls era, “Scheherazade” may also offer an early glimpse of the orchestral direction Sparks would explore more fully on Lil’ Beethoven.

Sparks insist that there is more to them than meets the eye on “More Than a Sex Machine,” the first single from Balls.

We discuss the song’s bouncy electronic production, sticky melody and unexpected tango-like character, including the intriguing suggestion that it could almost have been sung by Grace Jones. Lyrically, the supposedly irresistible lover has grown tired of being valued only for sex and would quite like someone to notice that he reads books and has a sensitive side.

We also explore its links to earlier Sparks songs such as “Sextown U.S.A.,” “All You Ever Think About Is Sex” and “La Dolce Vita,” the German single releases and elusive club remixes, and why reviewers often identified it as one of the album’s strongest tracks.

Catchy, funny and surprisingly vulnerable, “More Than a Sex Machine” provides a smoother bridge from Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins into the more abrasive world of Balls.

Sparks open Balls with a wake-up call.

The title track introduces the album’s harder electronic sound through pounding loops, abrasive production and a chorus built to provoke. We discuss its late-1990s big-beat influences, the comparisons with the Prodigy and David Bowie’s Earthling, and how Ron and Russell Mael managed to sound completely contemporary without losing their identity.

We also explore the irony behind the song’s blunt refrain, asking whether “all you need are balls” celebrates masculine confidence or criticizes the way swagger and self-belief are rewarded. Tammy Glover’s live drum fills add an organic edge to the programmed rhythms, helping turn the track into a forceful introduction to this new phase of Sparks.

It may not contain one of their most memorable melodies, but “Balls” succeeds as a bold, confrontational opener—and perhaps should have been one of the album’s singles.

Sparks enter the new millennium with Balls, an album that pushes the electronic sound of Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins into something louder, harder and more confrontational.

In this album-history episode, we trace the long road from Plagiarism to Sparks’ 18th studio album, including their work on Tsui Hark’s ill-fated film Knock Off, the animated short A Cute Candidate, and Russell Mael’s unreleased collaboration with Mulu. We also look at the loose home-studio process behind the record, with Tammy Glover adding live drums to Ron and Russell’s programmed rhythms.

We explore the album’s collision of synthpop, techno, big beat and occasional industrial textures, its distinctive multi-coloured artwork, divided critical reception, disappointing commercial performance and short theatrical tour. Finally, we examine how Sparks abandoned an almost completed electronic follow-up after deciding they were repeating themselves—a radical rethink that would lead directly to Lil’ Beethoven.

Balls may lack a hit as immediate as “When Do I Get to Sing ‘My Way’,” but it captures Sparks pushing one phase of their music as far as it could go before tearing up the formula and beginning again.

After their unexpected European comeback, Sparks were asked to release a greatest-hits collection. Naturally, they refused to do it the conventional way.

Instead, Plagiarism became Sparks covering Sparks: sixteen older songs completely re-recorded through electronic, rock, orchestral and choral arrangements, with collaborators including Faith No More, Erasure and Jimmy Somerville. We explore why Ron and Russell Mael resisted becoming a nostalgia act, how catalogue licensing helped shape the project, and whether these radical reconstructions illuminate the original songs or merely make us miss them.

We also discuss Tony Visconti’s dramatic orchestral arrangements, the album’s brilliantly fake cover, its abandoned collaborations, the arrival of longtime Sparks musicians Dean Menta and Tammy Glover, and its curious place between Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins, Balls and the future orchestral reinvention of Lil’ Beethoven.

Part greatest-hits album, part tribute record and part act of musical self-plagiarism, this is one of the strangest retrospective projects in Sparks’ catalogue.

Sparks bring Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins to a close with “Senseless Violins,” a tiny theatrical coda that completes the album title and delivers one final elaborate pun.

We discuss how this miniature ghost story mirrors the opening track, the way its ominous strings play on “senseless violence,” and whether it is really a song at all or simply a musical punchline. We also consider how its rejection of the “usual drums and bass” unexpectedly points ahead to the orchestral world of Lil’ Beethoven.

The conversation then expands into a full album retrospective, with our favourite tracks, the stronger first half, and the importance of the record as Sparks’ major European comeback. We also explore the extensive bonus material, including “She’s an Anchorman,” unreleased demos, the Christy Haydon collaboration “Katharine Hepburn,” and a gloriously strange industrial reinvention of “Boris the Spider.”

Sparks finally arrive at their surf song, but naturally, nobody actually goes surfing.

“Let’s Go Surfing” finds its characters trapped in a grey, landlocked town, dreaming of California from a room “only Dickens could love.” We discuss the contrast between its bright, distinctly 1990s Europop production and Ron Mael’s wonderfully literate lyrics, filled with Wagnerian, Shakespearean and misanthropic references that no ordinary surf anthem would dare attempt.

We also debate whether it should have been chosen as a single in 1994, its eventual release in 2019, and whether its busy arrangement and divisive chorus make it a charming late-album highlight or one of the record’s less memorable moments.

Sparks summon one of popular entertainment’s most flamboyant figures on “The Ghost of Liberace,” a deceptively gentle deep cut from Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins.

We discuss whether the song is affectionate tribute, affectionate parody, or something balanced between the two. Beneath its ghost-story setting and typically strange Sparks premise lies a sincere defence of individuality: Liberace may be mocked by the people watching him, but eventually even they are won over. We also explore the track’s lilting melody, warm synth layers, spoken passages and choir-like stacks of Russell Mael vocals.

It may not be one of the album’s biggest moments, but “The Ghost of Liberace” is an enjoyable and unusually timeless Sparks song about allowing people to be gloriously themselves.

Sparks take a surprising detour with "Tsui Hark," a quirky tribute to the legendary Hong Kong film director. Built around spoken-word samples, an infectious groove and understated electronic textures, it's one of the album's most unusual moments—and perhaps its most unconventional.

In this episode, we discuss who Tsui Hark is, why Sparks dedicated a track to him, the song's hypnotic atmosphere, and whether it works better as a musical interlude than a traditional song. We also revisit a wonderfully odd 1995 TV performance featuring Ron Mael enthusiastically lip-syncing the spoken-word parts—an unforgettable piece of Sparks history.

Sparks take one of their most absurd ideas and somehow turn it into an irresistibly catchy pop song. In this episode, we explore "Now That I Own the BBC," a playful satire built around the unlikely premise of accidentally buying Britain's national broadcaster for five pounds.

We discuss the song's infectious 90s Europop sound, its tongue-in-cheek lyrics, the many remixes it inspired, and the wonderfully surreal music video. We also compare the bright, upbeat album version with Ron Mael's much darker spoken-word reading of the lyrics, revealing a completely different side to one of the album's most entertaining singles.