During the first few minutes of The Sparks Brothers — superfan Edgar Wright’s 140-minute documentary spanning the 50-year career of shrouded-in-mystery sibling duo Sparks — other superfans like Beck, Duran Duran, Björk, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones, “Weird Al” Yankovic, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go’s, and even Neil Gaiman make a very solid argument that Sparks is one of the most influential acts of all time. In one particularly trailer-worthy soundbite, Jack Antonoff even boldly hypothesizes that “all pop music is rearranged Vince Clarke and rearranged Sparks.” Depeche Mode/Yazoo/Erasure founder Clarke is actually in the documentary singing Sparks’s praises as well, but Yahoo Entertainment just has to ask the band’s Ron and Russell Mael themselves if they agree with Antonoff’s theory.
“Jack Antonoff is a great producer and musician, so he’s gotta be right,” frontman and younger brother Russell deadpans.
“The good thing about the documentary — one of the many good things — is that other people could answer those kinds of questions for us, without us sounding like arrogant bastards,” humble keyboardist Ron chuckles.
