Taking Sides: Sparks vs. Sham 69

"All other considerations (e.g. the catastophic and irrepairable damage they did to the UK punk scene!) aside, the first 2 or 3 Sham singles were OK - but they were only ever one trick ponies musically, and it wasn't even a particularly clever trick at that. Jimmy Pursey's subsequent periodic attempts to reinvent himself / Sham 69 have all been as laughably dreadful as his lyrics have always been.

Sparks on the other hand have written hundreds of clever, funny songs in innumerable different styles and successfully reinvented themselves repeatedly.

Give me "Amateur Hour" or "Looks Looks Looks" or "This Town Ain't Big Enough For Both Of Us" or "Tips For Teens" or "I Predict" or "Cool Places" or "Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth" or "The Number One Song In Heaven" or "Beat The Clock" or "Tryouts For The Human Race" or "Wonder Girl" raather than that gurning imbecile Pursey bellowing some pile of bollocks about how going down the pub, or inisisting that coming from Hersham somehow makes him a Cockney, any day!"

Absolutely nothing, as long as you don't bring armies of fuck-witted skinheads with you who then they proceed to smash the bar up so that no-one can get a pint then start kicking crap out of all the regulars.

Here is a large part of my problem with Sham 69 in a nutshell:

a) they didn't come from ".... places you don't wanna go" at all - they came from the leafy Surrey suburbs of Hersham - they just pretended they came from ".... places you don't wanna go" to try to make themselves look hard and dangerous.

b) as part of their desperate bid to make themselves look hard and dangerous, they started to mix with some people who were really hard and dangerous; and proceeded to bring those people into the punk scene, where (as anyone with a double-figure IQ would have predicted) they proceeded to turn that scene into somewhere that the rest of us didn't want to go!

c) they (Sham 69) then had the temerity to whine with self pity and ask for sympathy because the idiots they had invited into the scene were making it impossible for them to play anywhere. Boo hoo fuckin' hoo - my sympathy continues to know no start.

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I was trying to illustrate (for the benefit of non-Limeys) the sheer nonsense of claiming to be a Cockney when you're from fuckin' Walton On Thames.

I would like to know who they "they" were who called James and the lads 'the cockney cowboys'.

But it's just not! It was vaguely funny for about a handful of songs with a total duration of about 20 minutes (certainly not long enough to make a listenable album) some time in 1978.

Sparks' music on the other hand is actually substantial enough to bear both repeated listening and detailed analysis.

Not only that but (perhaps more importantly) it's 25 miles outside London and not even in the right direction for them to be bleedin' Cockneys.

"I would like to know who they "they" were who called James and the lads 'the cockney cowboys'."

I don't know who they were, but I think we can rule out anyone with even a rudimantary grasp of geography.

....if you enjoy yawning, maybe.

Also (perhaps more by luck than judgment) Bowie didn't actually trigger a martian invasion that led to the destruction of our entire planet.

Sparks are a pop group - I don't see how being "clever" negates the appeal. You'd think people were talking about math rock or something. Maybe by "detailed analysis" Stewart means "more than the same three chords"?

It wasn't my idea. One of the usual cheese-monkeys first postulated the contrast on my comparitively highly respectable Taking Sides: Kate Bush vs. Siouxsie Sioux. I agree that Sparks and Sham 69 are....WAIT FOR IT...apples & oranges, but if I had to choose, I'd grab a copy of Hersham Boys and use a copy of Angst in My Pants as a fuckin' coaster.