047: Sparks - Whomp That Sucker (1981) - Album history and discussion

Reset button: pressed. After two albums with Giorgio Moroder and a bruising experience on Terminal Jive, the Mael brothers walk away from Virgin and the Moroder machine, head back to L.A., and rebuild Sparks as a band. They befriend local outfit Bates Motel at the Farmers Market and recruit Bob Haag (guitar), Leslie Bohem (bass) and David Kendrick (drums), then spend six energetic weeks woodshedding new material—music first, lyrics (often) the night before recording.

The sessions move to Musicland Studios in Munich with Reinhold “Mack” at the desk, yielding a rougher, new-wave, live-band feel: less glossy disco, more wiry guitars and wit-forward anarchy. The boxing-ring artwork sets the tongue-in-cheek tone—carried into the promo cycle where Sparks even staged a real bout in London (reportedly costing Ron a cracked rib). Singles “Tips for Teens” and “Funny Face” arrive with delightfully odd videos (and one notorious prank cut sent to RCA that didn’t exactly endear the new label).

Commercially, the album barely nicks the U.S. charts, but KROQ in Los Angeles flips the script: four Whomp That Sucker tracks go into rotation, “Funny Face” lands high on the station’s year-end list, and Sparks sell out three nights at the Whisky a Go Go to a new, young crowd rediscovering the band. Meanwhile, a planned France/Belgium tour sputters—hot in big cities, cold elsewhere—before the group returns to plot their next move. Along the way: a surreal Munich “Rock & Klassiknacht” jam (Russell on maracas, Ron tapping bananas), a brief Ramones cameo (Russell on backing vocals), and later Japanese CD “bonus tracks” that don’t actually belong to this era.

It’s a spirited, funny, and refreshingly band-centric reboot that points straight to the punchy 80s run to come. Next up in the feed: track-by-track, starting with “Tips for Teens.”