Thanks for watching! I’m really glad you enjoyed it. It’s an album that I really want to get back to because there are so many great things in these lyrics.
What a great album and your thoughts on the lyrics are superb, especially regarding the title of the album... I had the Noel album on vinyl years ago and I really enjoyed it and it's great to see it re-released at last. Thanks for the shout out by the way!
That Noel album is new to me and I love it! I only heard it as part of Christian’s podcast, and couldn’t believe how good it is. My feeling is that with a few edits there are five hit singles on ‘is there more to life than dancing”, and I’m excited for the band that this album with get another shot now.
Thanks! I only heard Noel a year ago, and that was after writing a long essay about voices hidden in the music on N1IH! It’s such a great album and I’m so happy it’s getting a proper release.
This was excellent! I have been waiting for an analysis of this caliber for so long. I am very curious your analysis on the other songs on the album. I’ve always seen N1IH as a concept album about life, death, spirituality, capitalism, and hedonism. The way the album is written and the order is just so precise. It reminds me of The Meaning of Life by Monty Python.
Thank you so much! I can’t wait to share more of these ideas. I see the same themes you mention, and I think they’re very deliberately chosen. How I see it, life, spirituality, capitalism and hedonism all fit the world of disco songwriting that Ron has entered, and I’d add dancing, competition and performance to the mix. Death is the odd one out because it’s not a part of disco, or at least it wasn’t until this record. I’ve wrote this a couple of years ago - www.sparks-onefortheages.com/post/what-number-1-in-heaven-by-sparks-is-really-about.
I actually interpret this song to be about Ron's creative muse. That the idea that his muse is of divine origin or at least he treats his creative muse like it is divine. I think this song is about this longheld Lutheran (or JS Bach) belief in music that the composer doesn't really write the music but is the conduit of divine/godly presence. Martin Luther belief that all music that creates a sense of awe is the presence of the divine irrespective whether it is secular or sacred. Of course most people accepts this in terms of "high art"/classical music that there is something deeply profound and spiritual about classical music. However Ron Mael is writing not just pop music which is considered a superficial genre in of itself but disco which is considered even more throwaway within the subgenre of pop music. The song/creative muse of divine origin descend from the clouds into the cars and become a number 1 hit. It creates a discussion that is both humorous but also serious whether pop music/disco music is capable of being divine or considered "art" as other more serious genres of music. Ron answer is yes. He approaches writing disco with the same respect, craftmanship as any other genre and belief that disco is capable of more than it is portrayed previously. Perhaps this is his view that the album is elevating disco to a higher level.
I love that way of putting it, and I fully agree. What supports your view of it even more (in my view) is the song Stravinsky’s Only Hit from 2020. It has a similar idea where classical music is considered somehow divine or elevated, even though people love Statvinsky’s pop hit, it’s forgotten, despite being a product of true genius. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this.
I really enjoyed that video, Paul. Regarding "my other voice," I always imagined that the other voice was music, specifically Sparks' disco music. And isn't that Giorgio Moroder's voice during the first vocal part? Russell comes in crooning a bit later, of course. It's my favorite track on the album. Your theories are, as always, thought-provoking and engaging. Please keep it up. Have fun on the Continent!
Thanks Andy. I plan on going further into My other voice on part two, but I’ve been thinking the same as you, about My Other Voice referencing the duality of what they do - the contradictions between Ron and Russ. When you say it’s Georgio, do you mean the vocoder?
Fantastic analysis. Just a thought - did Noel actually exist? Would sort of suit the concept wouldn’t it? Imagine having the intelligence and hutzpah to do something like this but then just leave it out there for us all to discover sometime or never… That’s Art… more power to their elbow I say!
Thanks! Finding this stuff has blown my mind, because I’m sure I’m onto something incredibly cool, and massive, because this sort of treatment, where everything is every song is a puzzle about Sparks, seems to work on every album. I can’t wait to share more.
For me this really was a right age - right time - right place album. Early teen - driving synths - bit of electronic weirdness in the breakdown - cryptic lyrics and a single that had a B-side twice the length of the A side. And the satire of the disco audience was signalled by the Peter Cook sketches on the Try Outs for the Human Race 12".
I can imagine this hitting hard at the time. I feel like SO MUCH of the music I’ve loved over the years can be traced right back to this record. When I was watching the sparks bros doc in the cinema my friend turned around during Tryouts and said “it sounds like LCD soundsystem”, he was right and it predated them by 30 years!
About 30 years ago I discovered the Noel picture disc by chance in a second hand record store and couldn't believe my luck as I had not known about that collaboration. However, I can't help feeling these were reject songs and do not match the peerless quality of those they decided to keep for themselves. No. 1 song in heaven changed my life profoundly. My other voice is just sublime. When will UK markets be offered the US only RSD release??
I’m not sure about lyrics, but they credit Moroder with writing the opening riff of Number One Song Part One. Part of me thinks this might be self-deprecating though.
Fascinating as always, but I have to confess that, apart from Beat The Clock and The Number One Song In Heaven, this album leaves me absolutely cold, it's one I never listen to. Ditto the Noel album. R&R's collaboration with Telex was far more entertaining (especially Sigmund Freud's Party).
Weirdly Beat the Clock was the one that didn’t stick for me. I LOVE that moment in Tryouts with the keyboard solo leading into “we must… we must… we must…”. It gets me every time!
I can't say that there was much hidden in the lines Why are you hearing this now you ask,maybe you are closer to here than you care to be. I got this as soon as I heard the song back when I was 15 years old. It was the track that introduced and attracted me to the band.
