“If you strip away the images you could put us beside King Crimson. The musicality and ambition would fit. But for us it’s 50 per cent about music, 50 per cent about hair”: Sparks’ commitment to silliness is very prog indeed

Sparks.

Take two quirky brothers wielding hot pants and Hitler moustaches, add the sound of King Crimson laying waste to The Archies, and stir in 70s glam rock megastardom. That unrepeatable recipe raised the question we explored in 2012: how prog are Sparks?

“When I was in The Futureheads,” recalls Peter Brewis of Field Music, ”Sparks were a big influence. In fact, you had to like their albums Kimono My House and Propaganda, and their single The Number One Song In Heaven, to be in the band!"