137: Sparks - Balls (2000) - Bullet Train

Sparks board the Shinkansen for “Bullet Train,” one of the fastest and most relentlessly repetitive tracks on Balls.We discuss its breakneck electronic production, steadily accumulating layers and late-1990s action-movie energy, along with the obvious links to “Balls” and “Aeroflot.” For some of us, it is the strongest of the album’s harder electronic tracks; for others, the formula already feels overused by this point.Beneath the celebration of speed and engineering perfection, however, Sparks insert a small relationship crisis. The bullet train may be immaculate and impeccable, but its passengers remain incapable of building a perfect relationship—and crying is apparently best saved until they get home.We also revisit Ron Mael’s wonderfully deadpan lyric reading and ask how longtime fans reacted when Sparks returned after such a long gap with a sound so heavily rooted in contemporary big beat and electronica.