Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins

After Interior Design, Sparks wisely took a six year break to go back to their rooms and think about what they had done. Gratuitous Sax was a refreshing return to the lyrical wit of their earlier records with a new found commitment to pure euro-style dance music. These tracks really feel like they’re numbers from a forgotten Broadway musical. Not show tunes, but stories that are sung from a character’s perspective. Anyhow, this isn’t their finest work but it was a nice nudge back in the right direction. I remember buying this CD at a shopping mall record store and pony-tailed clerking being overly amused by the cover. I’m not going to say the cover is that funny, but I will say that it is awfully yellow.