Kimono My House

Unbearable prog pop. One of the most annoying things I’ve ever heard. Theater kids in album form - just a massively irritating and twee onslaught of bright noise, childish melodies, and idiotic instrumentation. OOH LOOK HOW WHIMSICAL WE ARE!!!! shut up.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It's got loads of personality but parts of it are irritating. The vocals mostly.

I was expecting more? Everything was just average.

Interesting listen, just not something I think I’d revisit

It's like a more unintelligible, bubblegummy version of queen. The songs were repetitive and seemed to have little to say despite how many words were being thrown around. I was coming in optimistic, but left with Dollartree Day at the Races. 2.4/5 - 2/5.

I had SO much fun listening to this!!!!
4.5 ⭐

pretty funny

Fabulously weird album. Loved the chaos and the mix of instruments and sounds.

You can trust Sparks to play you a simple song in the most delightfully complex way possible. I’m amazed the frankly genius Thank God It’s Not Christmas has not made it onto any Christmas playlists I’ve ever encountered. The way they pronounce “Ch-rist-mas” is startling and exciting.

Despite some excellent songs peppered throughout, this album as a whole is just on the cusp of being brilliant. Close but not quite. I love the vibe, the ambition, the approach (and the amazing song titles!) But the songs aren’t always quite there for me. It is potentially a bit style of substance in some instances.

Hard to believe this came out in 1974. Seems ahead of its time are various points.

"Falling in Love with Myself Again" is a very annoying song.

This whole album just sounds like i'm in a haunted circus.

Overall, this album clearly was an influence on many artists to come after, but I just think this is an incredibly obnoxious album.

Hyvä poprock-pläjäys! riittävän erilainen pysyäkseen kiinnostavana. 4/5

It's energetic and dumb fun, just a joy to listen to this. Especially side 1 of this record is really captivating and full of hits. This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us is one of the best singles of the 70's. Sparks is an all around bizarre band and I'm glad they are included on this list. The newspaper article that was included with my Sparks record says they are addicted to candy, which explains why the entire album sounds like a sugar rush.

I like how theatrical and idiosyncratic this is. I can only commend them for doing something so artsy and out there, and to really own it. For the most part I enjoyed this and had a nice time, but it did seem to bleed into one a little bit, especially the longer it went on.

I'll give it to Sparks for being sober enuf to know: 'It's a lot like playing the violin / You cannot start off and be Yehudi Menuhin.' B/c otherwise, tho far more playful than Queen, this record is just as guilty of get-you-nowhere theatrics as any Queen release is. The best tracks, heralded by 'Thank God It's Not Christmas,' have an effective sense of humor that enhance their catchiness, and some of the lyrics are hilarious: 'You mentioned Kant and I was shocked / You know, where I come from, none of the girls have such foul tongues.' But if I'm to judge a record based on how much I'd like to put it on rotation, this isn't a topper for me: tho very creative, especially the jazzy 'Equator,' Sparks is too phony-baloney to be a product I feel.

Absolutely chaotic and not my typical jam but I couldn't help but like it

Entertainment and fun

If you threw Styx and Abba in a bag and chucked the bag into a river of sweet Brandywine you'd have this. I don't hate it.

It's sort of like a full album of Virginia Plain which sounds like a lot of fun but can be a bit exhausting to my ears. However, when I focused in on the lyrics rather than the slightly strained falsetto it did become a lot more fun.

3.25

I’m at a 5.

I don’t know if it’s a 5 necessarily because of the music itself being a big bombastic knockout set of tracks – there are certainly standouts like “Thank God It's Not Christmas”, “Hasta Mañana, Monsieur” & “Equator”, but all in all, at a pure musical level, I wouldn’t classify this into the big top tier of any particular genre it’s going for. This is at a 5 because it’s a consistently great set of tracks, that does a fantastic job of blending a lot of musical genres (i.e. pop, glam rock, prog rock, blues, etc) & artists (i.e., Queen, Elton John, Pet Shop Boys, The Beatles, Green Day somehow, Genesis, etc) into a coherent sound that feels unlike anything else in 1974 that I’ve heard, one that vaguely transcends genres to be its own, totally unique thing, full of elements easy to pick out, but hard to put together. It fully succeeds even though it could totally have crumbled under the pressure to make it all fit together.

If I have any knocks, it’s oddly in the mixing – I could be wrong about this, but I think there’s a really subtle wall of sound effect in the mix that stopped the clarity of everything from feeling as clean as it could, and it rubbed me the wrong way throughout. It added a bit of depth, and gave the percussion a really cool feel, but it comes at the expense of… something. My best guess is that the extra “space” in the mix feels emptier, and adds a slightly cavernous feel that’s present, but never acknowledged. I can’t exactly place it, but it just bit at me that nothing felt quite as clean as it could. Perhaps that’s an intentional choice? It would certainly add to the avant-garde feel of it all – this album constantly feels like it’s one bad note away from having a track fall apart, but it balances itself throughout, and acts as a sort of triumph for complete experimentation.

So, yeah, I’m at a 5. It’s a really fun album, and perhaps with enough time, I can really appreciate these tracks more for just how technically sound they all are – this has to be a complex album to write sheet music for, and performing it is a different story, especially if they did any of these live. They all have good stories, they keep the band on their toes with all the tempo changes and pauses, and as a listener, I think the layering tricks in the mix, even with that “cavernous space”, is still pretty unique for the time. It’s a divisive album – I can totally hear how this might be a 3 for “average, weird rock that doesn’t know what genre it wants to be & nasally annoying vocals” or something, but I’m at a 5 because I admire how big of a swing it took and how well it stuck the landing. May joy and whimsy live on, I guess.