Ben Forrest

Sat 22 August 2026 10:00, UK

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You don’t last as long as Sparks have without an extensive, ever-expanding pool of influences to draw upon.

Over the course of their enduring tenure, the Mael brothers have drawn upon everything from French cinema to Italo-disco, but perhaps their most unassuming and unwavering influence comes from a far more commercial avenue of inspiration.

Rock and roll has always shared a rather confused relationship with the idea of commercialism. During the days of punk, for instance, groups preached a rejection of music industry capitalism in favour of an unwavering DIY approach. But the fact that most people have heard of bands like the Sex Pistols or The Clash means that, inevitably, the commercial arm of the industry still managed to get its claws in. Across the entirety of the rock spectrum, though, Sparks are a rather unusual case.

Like virtually every budding musician starting out around the turn of the 1970s, Sparks have always harboured a certain desire for mainstream attention and the commercial success of their material, spurring on classic records like Kimono My House in 1974.

Crucially, though, that desire for mass audiences has never overtly impacted Ron Mael’s songwriting style. If it had, songs like ‘Music That You Can Dance To’, ‘Girl From Germany’, or ‘Balls’ probably wouldn’t have ever made it into the studio, and the music world would be worse off as a result.

Mael’s songwriting itself might not be geared specifically towards the Hit Parade, but he has consistently employed some of the tactics of commercialism in constructing the weird and wonderful world of Sparks – namely, the influence of advertising jingles.

During an interview with The Quietus, the songwriter once spoke about that very topic, sharing, “We did an interview with a French rock journalist about a year ago, and she said: ‘Did American advertising jingles have any effect on what Sparks’ music would become?’ When I came to think about it, it really did seem like that kind of jaunty, angular, sometimes overly happy musical expression had an effect on our music in some way.”

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Seemingly without consciously doing so, Mael’s work has long since drawn from those catchy TV ads and commercial earworms. “It wasn’t necessarily just bands but mindless television that had influenced us,” he affirmed.

Adding, “Whether they were advertising Brylcreem or hair pomade, Gillette razors, Alka-Seltzer or even cars. Those jingles were always irritatingly catchy, and I think they had an effect on me for better or worse.”

Some of Sparks’ material is more awash with the spirit of those TV jingles than others. 1981’s ‘Tips for Teens’, for instance, not only features the kind of catchy keys that were commonplace in the ads of the 1980s, but also features lyricism deliberately parodying the kind of health and beauty ads and advice featured prominently in TV ad breaks and teen-focused magazines.

Even some of the band’s more recent efforts, ‘Nothing Is As Good As They Say It Is’, bear some discernible similarity to the kind of earworm instrumentals on which television adverts have been built for decades. While that certainly doesn’t mean that Sparks’ material is overly commercial – far from it, in fact – it does give an invaluable insight into the extensive pool of influences that go into making a typical Sparks track.