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Sparkstember Day 21: Exotic Creatures Of The Deep (Strange Animal)

Some of you might already have some idea of how absolutely abnormal I am about this album and have been for several months, without fail. It's... perfect? And you know that personal relevance will also often be a total game changer in deciding what your ultimate favourites are and such. It's personal relevance of my own doing anyway, if I can call it that, you know those memes that go something like "it's MY mental breakdown and *I* chose the soundtrack!!". Oh yeah, that's what happened here. But even that aside I might never get over how much ECOTD is EVERYTHING I might want from an album and it has not lost its power with passing time even one bit. I'm wary to call anything a number one definitive favourite most of the time, but if I really had to choose... yeah, this is my favourite album of all time, there's absolutely no denying that.

Where do I even start with this... Well, coming back a bit to the LB - HYL - ECOTD series as a whole, I love how all three of them have so much in common and each one is some sort of natural development on the previous one, keeping its core elements but also adding new ones that are unique to the new album. And I guess the style of ECOTD is the one that ended up speaking to me the most. Toning it down a bit on the repetition aspect, adding more fancy synths, heavy drums, more guitar-based stuff continuing from HYL... And its still edgier and more electronic and darker and theatrical than the previous ones. Maybe I could even call it straight up COOL sounding (at least at times) in a way that the previous ones aren't (or not quite as much). (And that's not to say that they're all not icredibly cool in their own way anyway, but, you know.) None of these three are definitely better than the others for me by the way, but. Still, love the whole evolution here a lot.

And now, of course, a word on the craziest and most ambitious idea of the century, the 21×21 shows. I spent about a month, if not more, earlier this year going through what I'm quite sure must be the majority of what's been recorded from these shows, and I have no regrets. And yeah, one of the most impressive feats in the history of music, playing 21 albums in full day after day, but also can we please talk about the visualisations they put there to go with the albums. Catching glimpses of those album covers being comically stretched or rotated and such was a very important part of the whole experience. But yeah, Sparks Spectacular, it really is so spectacular.

I actually do have specific favourites on this album rather than being obsessed with it all the same amount, but I think it deserves special treatment just like Lil' Beethoven, so, let's go, going over all of them now. And I think it's better to just dive straight into them now anyway, in order to get a better hang of this whole album and why it's so brilliant and special to me.

Intro + Intro Reprise

I love you leitmotifs that reappear throughout the album and tie it all together. Such a good touch on what is imo the most cinematic of Sparks albums

Good Morning

This happened a couple of times to me with Sparks, when I first hear a song and I'm quite intrigued and delighted but that's mostly it. And then I hear it once more after a while and I'm never the same again from that point on. THIS!!!!!! SONG!!!!! I was so right that I would love all of ECOTD even more than anything before it based just on this. This is the Russell falsetto album by the way, that's important to note. I'm very impressed by this song in many ways. I like that it starts with this specific synth sound that's VERY characteristic of this whole album. And the fake ending... This song has LB and HYL all over it but it's also its own beautiful thing

Strange Animal

This song has an effect of "stopping in my tracks the moment I hear the first note" on me to be honest, another one of my forever and biggest favourites. Right up there with all the other rocking epics to the likes of Ugly Guys With Beautiful Girls, Dick Around and As I Sit Down To Play The Organ. Sparks going meta on music & being a musician is also always very cool to see

I Can't Believe That You Would Fall For All The Crap In This Song

My first impression of what would become my most listened to Sparks song was a "wait, this was supposed to be a Sparks-only playlist, am I still listening to Sparks??" But a couple more months passed and what can I say, I'm obsessed now (and have been for over half a year now). The Maels saying "fuck you" to love songs & pop songs cliches will always be one of my favourite things about them... While they're also actively alluding to and using those cliches to create something very effective. I'm sure that it being so similar to the type of electro pop songs that were getting lots of radio play in the late 00s is why I'm so drawn to the sound here. It's always all about that nostalgia effect, huh (and this album is the absolute PEAK of "oh god why are all these songs so nostalgic to me I've only known them for this relatively short amount of time")

Let The Monkey Drive

This song ends what is probably my favourite 4 consecutive songs run on any album ever. Each is so mindblowing but in a different way. Best thing about this song to me is its atmopshere. It's just SO tangible. Like, this IS driving past the speed limit on a highway in the middle of the night (we can ignore the rest of what's happening in the story here for a moment). Obsessed with Russell's voice here and also it's so great to me how such a minimalistic approach can be so effective in creating this whole very specific mental image. Just unsettling strings in the back and two notes (or repeating chords) on the piano that are sort of the most prominent "melody" here and that's all you need. The suspense, the understatedness of it all, I love it

I've Never Been High

One of the most Sparks-like of Sparks songs in a way? And another one where I could probably start coming up with lyrical interpretations for on the spot. Lots to think about regarding all of these songs to be honest. And I like how the rising piano notes at the end lead into the descending flute (?) melody at the start of the next song

(She Got Me) Pregnant

Honestly, I absolutely love this song, it's one of my favourites on the album, maybe top five material. And it somehow sounds exactly like how I could have imagined it to sound, based on just its premise, I don't really know how that works but it does, lmao. And who else would give you this sort of song if not Sparks, no one

Lighten Up, Morrissey

Glam rock bliss that does not clash with the rest of the album despite being pretty stylistically different from the rest of it. Quite saddening that it's the only song here that has a music video, when there's SO MUCH potential here, seriously, again, this whole album is so cinematic. I do quite like what we got here though, love this era of Sparks ALSO when it comes to the visual side of it all (I keep saying this over and over), but still, there's so much more we could have had, y'know

This Is The Renaissance

GOOD GOD, I LOVE THIS ONE, in love with it from the first listen. It's everything that makes this album so grand and one-of-a-kind in a nutshell. Among the top 10 Sparks songs that should have had a music video also. I have a pretty elaborate painting idea based on this song in mind, so I hope I'll be able to make it into reality at some point in the future

The Director Never Yelled 'Cut'

List of Sparks songs where movie-directing is used as an allegory of sex is somehow at least two songs long I've noticed (this + Love Scenes). Anyway, this one's a pretty heavy one to unpack so I don't think I can really do it justice today. Love it just like every other song on here though

Photoshop

Another one that could have had such a killer music video. Again, stripped-down arrangement that's just enough to hit you with the right amount of feels and overall one of the most killer Ron piano master moments overall, now that I think about it. The plea of "photoshop me out of your life" sounds pretty... on-the-nose out of context? But again, Sparks magic makes it work anyway! And the 21×21 performance is in my top 10 Sparks live moments of all time (I don't actually have a list like this but, maybe I should make it now)

Likeable

...This is the song of all time to me. Honestly, give me any song pondering the nature of what it means to love vs what it means to like someone and things of such nature and you have me hooked forever. But even that aside, musically speaking, it's just... perfection. Most cinematic Sparks song overall maybe, it's really just like a little movie, every moment is so perfectly timed and measured, I have no words honestly, for just, how incredible it all is. The melodic aspect now, it makes me so emotional, one of the most likely of Sparks song to make me cry, for real. I could start going over every different part of the song now but honestly, they're all just, equally amazing. Special shoutout to the waltz parts though, and the bridge. Oooohhh the bridge, when it all gets so intense, and then the main melody reappears with an acoustic guitar, it's just, peak of it all. And then the intro leitmotif comes back again and it's just?!?.?? My feelings on this song might even still not be fully comprehensible and clear to me. All in all, couldn't imagine a better album closer than this, hands down. And this song also closing the Sparks Spectacular series of shows, yeah (not counting the encore). Oh man. Oh maaannnnn. What a freaking ride.

#FAVOURITE ALBUM OF ALL TIME DAY IS HERE 🔥🔥🔥#pretty epic how i actually just sort of made my long-postponed ecotd essay today #cause yeah i've wanted to do this since march but somehow never got round to it #and i'm happy that i was able to pay tribute to a couple very important things with today's drawing #21×21 shows and strange animal and also the legendary pink striped suit #i'll try to be more chill again with the remaining days though lol #but also one last entry on my top 5 fav albums ever list is still coming so. we'll see how that one goes in due time #sparkstember 2024 #my art #goose monologues

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