Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim and continued the group's commercial success in the UK, despite the return to an independent label. Mad! entered the UK Albums Chart at no. 2, the highest in Sparks' career.[6]
Their first album of original material since leaving Island Records, the second time since Big Beat in 1976, Mad! also follows the self-released Annette – An Opera by Sparks (The Original 2013 Recordings) in 2024.[8] In an interview for Mojo magazine, lead vocalist Russell Mael states that in the wake of a successful world tour in promotion for The Girl Is Crying in Her Latte, Sparks had begun on their next studio album, finishing within a six month span.[1]
Promotion and singles
In anticipation for Mad!, Sparks released five attached singles. The first single, "Do Things My Own Way", was released on January 30, 2025, with the music video premiering five days later.[9] The video was directed by Ambar Navarro, who has also worked with artists such as the Lemon Twigs,[10]Weyes Blood,[11] and John Carpenter.[12] In a review of the song for Beats Per Minute, Joshua Pickard praised the effort, stating that it "recalls the idiosyncracies of their early work while also highlighting the more populist sounds of their later releases."[9] Sparks released the second single "JanSport Backpack" on February 25, alongside the announcement of the album's release date, cover, and track listing.[13]
On April 2, 2025, Sparks released their third single "Drowned in a Sea of Tears",[14] followed by another music video directed by Ambar Navarro[5] and starring performer Tina Kronis.[15] The song's atypical sincerity is noted in an interview by Variety's Chris Willman where Ron Mael says that while "We do try to have some level of seriousness below the surface of even the song[sic] that are humorous,... in the traditional definition of what sincerity in a song is, this is more that."[14] On May 1 and 21, the final singles "My Devotion" and "A Little Bit of Light Banter" were respectively released.[16][17]
On May 25, 2025, just two days after the album's release, Ron and Russell Mael joined comedian and actor Rob Brydon for a ninety-minute[18] interview at Union Chapel, London.[19][20] Ahead of the promotional event, entitled An Entirely MAD! Conversation Between Rob Brydon and Sparks!, Brydon said that he had been a fan of the duo since being gifted a cassette of Sparks' 1974 album Propaganda for his ninth birthday.[21]
Release
After its release on May 23, 2025,[13]Mad! debuted at no. 2 in the UK and no. 1 on both the Scottish and the UK Independent charts. This represents Sparks' highest UK chart position in their career, beating their previous record of no. 4 with Kimono My House (1974).[6] The weekly charts, which run every Friday,[22] include an additional midweek chart called the "Official Albums Chart Update", which compiles sales from Friday to Sunday.[23] This had Mad!, without the support of a major record label, reach the top position of no. 1, higher than Sparks' previous record of 2020's A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip at no. 4.[6]
Mad! received a score of 82/100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic based on 12 critics, which it categorized as "universal acclaim".[25] Another aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave the album 7.6/10 based on 11 critical reviews.[24]
In a four-star review for Mojo, James McNair said that on the album, the Mael brothers "continue to concoct songs that are distinctively, resolutely Mael. On MAD!, synth-pop, art-rock and a programmed Shostakovich vibe (see paean to Californian interstate highway I-405 Rules) all feed into their skewed, self-contained universe, the arrangements as unpredictable as the subject matter."[2] Robin Murray of Clash thought the album "seems to represent everything special about this period in their work."[27] Rating the album 7.6 out of 10 for Paste, Camyn Teder praised the songs' "unique structures" and satirical outlook, saying they "leave room for the thing that makes songs so great: a mystical ambiguity"; while they believed that Mad! was repetitive at times, they expressed that "this is certainly another feather in the cap for Sparks."[31]
Writing for the magazine Record Collector, Simon Price said in a five-star review that "MAD! enters, and attempts to reflect, a world that is mad in both the American (angry) and British (crazy) senses," citing "a new (or renewed) toughness to the sound" on certain tracks that draw comparisons to their sixth album Big Beat (1976).[33] Christopher Hamilton-Peach of The Line of Best Fit cited "Hit Me Baby" as an example, before concluding "The angular flexes in style and wordplay tied together with Russell's high wire deployment prove as duly consistent a formula as any of the standout entries in the duo's crowded discography."[28] In a four-star review for MusicOMH, John Murphy said, despite minor reservations concerning the repetition in songs such as "Hit Me, Baby" and "Running Up a Tab...", that "By the time the closing track... comes around, you’ll be mentally reordering your list of top 10 all-time Sparks albums."[30]
Madder! (stylized as MADDER!) is the upcoming debut studioextended play by Sparks, scheduled for release on October 3, 2025 through Transgressive Records. Comprising four tracks, it is intended to be a companion release to their album Mad! and was recorded quickly after the album was released earlier that year.[41] Prior to its official release, physical copies (CD, black vinyl, and picture disc) have been made available for purchase to concertgoers attending the North American leg of Sparks' Mad! Tour in September.[42]
The lead single, "Porcupine", was released on September 2, 2025 alongside the announcement of the EP.[41] The corresponding music video, which arrived days after the single's initial release,[43] stars the musical artist Self Esteem and was directed by Fred Rowson with production by Blink Productions and special effects by Selected Works.[42]
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