Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins

Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins is the 16th studio album by American rock band Sparks. It was released in 1994, after an absence from the music industry of 6 years, and marked the duo's transition into a more techno/Eurobeat-influenced sound, which earned them popularity in Germany.

Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins
Studio album by Sparks
Released	November 15, 1994
Studio	Sparks Studios, Los Angeles, California
Genre	Eurodance house techno[1]
Length	44:57
Label	Logic
Producer	Ron Mael Russell Mael
Sparks chronology
Interior Design (1988) Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins (1994) Plagiarism (1997)
Singles from Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins
"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" Released: October 1994 "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)" Released: March 1995 "Now That I Own the BBC" Released: 1995

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Cash Box	(favorable)[3]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music	[4]
Knoxville News Sentinel	[5]
Melody Maker	(favorable)[6]
NME	7/10[7]
Spin	(favorable)[8]

History

Sparks' previous album was released in 1988, and while it scored a couple of club hits in the US, had not been commercially successful. Critically the group had been receiving mixed reviews since their 1984 album Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat. While promoting Interior Design, Sparks banded together with the French duo Les Rita Mitsouko and released the single "Singing in the Shower" which was a moderate hit in France. Sparks then went on a temporary hiatus while the brothers spent the late 1980s and early 1990s concentrating on film-making, particularly an attempt to make a Japanese manga series, Mai, The Psychic Girl, into a movie. They had hoped to have Tsui Hark direct with the actress-musician Christi Haydon voicing the lead character. Russell Mael had initially met Haydon when he admired her look while she was working on the cosmetics counter of a department store.^[9] Haydon's only experience at the time had been as a long running extra of the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. Despite interest from Tim Burton and six years' work on the project, it came to nothing.^[10][11]

In 1993, Sparks returned to the studio and released the stand-alone single "National Crime Awareness Week", and wrote and produced the single "Katharine Hepburn" for Christi Haydon. Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins followed in November the next year. It was produced by the duo without an additional backing band.^[2] The album had a sound that returned towards the European-synthesizer orientated sound of No. 1 In Heaven.^{[citation needed]} However, the songs retained an emphasis on pop song structure and a sound that was only slightly removed from that of Pet Shop Boys.^{[citation needed]}. The album was toured with Christi Haydon complementing the brothers on drums, as well as appearing in videos for the group. The a cappella title track "Gratuitous Sax" looked back to the equally brief opener of the band's 1974 album; Propaganda.^{[citation needed]} "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" makes reference to Frank Sinatra's signature-tune "My Way".

Release

Gratuitous Sax & Senseless Violins became Sparks most successful album in Germany reaching #29 and scored three hits on the German Singles chart.^[12] While the album only reached #150 on the UK Albums Chart, the singles did well enough to return the group to the Top 40, the first time since "Beat the Clock" in 1979.^[13] The lead single "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" made #7 in Germany^[14] and #38 in the UK (it was re-released in May 1995 and peaked at #32).^[15] The second single "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)" reached #61 in Germany^[16] and #36 in the UK.^[15] The final single "Now That I Own the BBC" did less well making #81 in Germany^[17] and #60 in the UK.^[15]

"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" and "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing)" managed to chart across Europe, and recommenced Sparks' popularity on the US Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club Play chart, where they reached No. 9 and #24.^[18]

Critical reception

Simon Price from Melody Maker praised the album, writing, "A fountain, a For 'eyn of a record."^[6]

Re-releases

Japanese editions of the album included a new mix "When I Kiss You (I Hear Charlie Parker Playing) by Bernard Butler as a bonus track. The album was re-released as the first album in the series Sparks – The Collection in 2006 on the groups' own record label Lil' Beethoven Records. This re-release featured new artwork, additional sleeve-notes and was packaged in a digipak-sleeve. The album was re-released again in 2019 by BMG Rights Management, in which the original album was remastered and included an additional 31 tracks.^[19]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Ron Mael and Russell Mael unless otherwise noted.

Original track listing

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Gratuitous Sax"	0:31
2.	"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'"	4:37
3.	"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing"	5:13
4.	"Frankly, Scarlett, I Don't Give a Damn"	5:03
5.	"I Thought I Told You to Wait in the Car"	4:20
6.	"Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil"	5:37
7.	"Now That I Own the BBC"	4:58
8.	"Tsui Hark" (feat. Tsui Hark & Bill Kong)	4:31
9.	"The Ghost of Liberace"	4:15
10.	"Let's Go Surfing"	5:02
11.	"Senseless Violins"	0:50
Total length:		44:57

Japanese bonus track

No.	Title	Length
12.	"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" (Bernard Butler's Fashionable World of Fashion Mix)	7:17
Total length:		52:14

2019 BMG Remastered and Expanded Edition

CD 2: Remixes / B-sides / Official Releases

No.	Title	Notes	Length
1.	"National Crime Awareness Week" (Complete Psycho)		5:17
2.	"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" (The Grid Radio Edit)		4:09
3.	"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" (Bernard Butler's Fashionable World of Fashion Mix)		7:06
4.	"Now That I Own the BBC" (Live Acoustic Version)	Live on BBC Radio One on Simon Mayo's morning show, October 28, 1994	1:32
5.	"When Do I Get to Sing "My Way"" (Vince Clarke Remix)		4:38
6.	"She's an Anchorman"		5:08
7.	"Little Drummer Boy"	Written by Harry Simeone, Katherine Kennicott Davis, and Henry Onorati	3:03
8.	"Beat the Clock" (Live in Concert)	Live at the Shepherd's Bush Empire, London, November 17, 1994	5:43
9.	"National Crime Awareness Week" (13 Minutes in Heaven)		13:05
10.	"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" (Sticks & Stones Remix)		6:20
11.	"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" (The Beatmasters' Full-Blown Dub)		5:34
12.	"Now That I Own the BBC" (Motiv 8 Extended Vocal Mix)		6:02
13.	"When Do I Get To Sing "My Way"" (Pro-Gress Mix)		4:36
14.	"National Crime Awareness Week" (The Janet Leigh Mix)		5:49
Total length:			78:02

CD 3: Demos & Unreleased Tracks — Demos

No.	Title	Notes	Length
1.	"Where Did I Leave My Halo?"		3:24
2.	"She's Beautiful (So What)"		3:40
3.	"Mid-Atlantic"		3:33
4.	"The Farmer's Daughter"	Previously released in Japan	4:02
5.	"This Angry Young Man (Ain't Angry No More)"		4:28
6.	"Bob Hope"		3:41
7.	"She's An Anchorman"		4:54
8.	"Love Can Conquer All"	Previously released in Japan	4:26
9.	"That's What I Call Paradise"		5:27
10.	"This Angry Young Man (Ain't Angry No More)" (Ron Vocal Version)		2:11
11.	"Mid-Atlantic" (Ron Vocal Version)		3:28
12.	"That's Entertainment" (feat. Les Bohem)	Vocals by Les Bohem	2:46

CD 3: Demos & Unreleased Tracks — Christi Haydon EP
All vocals by Christi Haydon

No.	Title	Writer(s)	Length
13.	"Katharine Hepburn"		5:04
14.	"Titanic"		4:42
15.	"Othello"		4:02
16.	"Holiday"	Barry Gibb · Robin Gibb	3:43
17.	"Boris the Spider"	John Entwistle	3:43
Total length:			67:14

Personnel

• Russell Mael – vocals, production
• Ron Mael – keyboards, production
• Tsui Hark and Bill Kong – guest vocals on "Tsui Hark"
• John Thomas – additional engineering and mixing
• Steve Bates – additional engineering and mixing
• Mark Stagg (for Pro-Gress and D.E.F.) – additional production on "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing", "I Thought I Told You to Wait in the Car" and "Let's Go Surfing"
• Alan Fisch – engineering on "(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" and "I Thought I Told You To Wait in the Car"
• Linus Burdick – additional production on "Now That I Own the BBC", "Hear No Evil, See No Evil, Speak No Evil" and "Let's Go Surfing"

Charts

Album

Original release Country/Region (1994/5) Peak position German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[12] 29 Hungarian Albums (MAHASZ)[20] 35 UK Albums (OCC)[13] 150

2019 expanded edition Country/Region (2019) Peak position Scottish Albums (OCC)[15] 45 UK Independent Albums (OCC)[15] 11

Singles

"When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" Chart (1994/5) Peak Position Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[21] 16 Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[22] 12 Germany (GfK)[14] 7 Netherlands (Single Top 100)[23] 35 Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[24][notes 1] 48 Scotland (OCC)[25] 41 Scotland (OCC)[26] 1995 re-issue 35 Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[27] 22 UK Singles (OCC)[15] 38 UK Singles (OCC)[15] 1995 re-issue 32 US Dance Club Songs (Billboard)[18] 9

"(When I Kiss You) I Hear Charlie Parker Playing" Chart (1995) Peak Position Germany (GfK)[16] 61 Scotland (OCC)[28] 38 UK Singles (OCC)[15] 36 US Dance Club Songs (Billboard)[18] 24 "Now That I Own the BBC" Chart (1995/6) Peak Position Germany (GfK)[17] 81 Scotland (OCC)[29] 53 UK Singles (OCC)[15] 60 "Let's Go Surfing" Chart (2019-2023) Peak Position Scotland (OCC)[30] 87 UK Physical Singles (OCC)[15] 6

Notes

1. "When Do I Get to Sing 'My Way'" peaked at no. 8 on the Dutch Top 40 Tipparade, which measures songs that fall below the threshold of a top 40 hit.