Day 257: Sparks – Nº 1 in Heaven
It’s a warm Sunday during a heatwave and I’ve got tomorrow off, so it’s disco time. Today I thought I’d go for a disco classic, or at least a cult classic, with Nº 1 in Heaven by Sparks.
Album cover courtesy of Virgin Records
Sparks are a duo formed in 1968 in the Pacific Palisades by brothers Russell and Ron Mael – not Hitler and Marc Bolan, as John Lennon famously quipped after seeing them on TV, which credit to him was actually a fairly reasonable comment. They started off doing art pop and glam rock, but pivoted to doing disco after they were doing an interview and lied about how they were going to work with Giorgio Moroder. Luckily for them, the journalist was good friends with Moroder, so he put them in touch and they did actually end up making an album together.
Nº 1 in Heaven was released in 1979 as the first collaborative album between Giorgio Moroder and Sparks. However, it was so out there at the time that it took a year for them to get it released. It was a completely different sound that what Sparks had done in the past, and it is frequently cited as a pioneering synth pop record.
Crazily enough, it still sounds groundbreaking today. It doesn’t sound like something that was actually done in the ‘70s, it still sounds new enough that you could easily convince me that it was done last year. Moroder’s looping production and catchy beats combined with the sort of sardonic, dry lyrics still sounds interesting, especially on the epic “The Number One Song in Heaven”, which goes into about ten unexpected directions throughout its seven minute run time on the version that’s on the album. The music video below is sadly shorter.
I would imagine that it’s hard to make a disco album that still sounds fresh in 2026, but what can Giorgio Moroder not do? I said a few days ago that he’s just always cropping up for me these days, always at the scene of the crime, and here we are again. Nº 1 in Heaven is a pleasantly camp album that I will absolutely listen to again and I need to get better acquainted with Sparks. 9/10.