When covering other people’s material, there’s no point in phoning it in, and creating something that’s a flat but respectable reconstruction. It’s much better to make things your own, and re-imagine everything from the ground up – as with Type O Negative’s ‘Summer Breeze’ and Lalo Schifrin’s frankly bizarre disco rehash of the ‘Jaws’ theme, just to give a couple of great examples.

This concept isn’t lost on singer songwriter Chelsea Spear and her solo ukulele pop project Travels With Brindle. Their 2025 release ‘Number One In Heaven’ takes the bulk of the Sparks 1979 LP of the same name and melds it in her own image. Taking the six songs and stripping them down to basics, Spear allows for a closer inspection of some basic melodies. But does it work?

Sort of. With great material in hand, this was never going to be a failure. However, the one-dimensional approach taken to recording – just voice and uke in the main, with little else to distract or entertain – sometimes brings its own issues.

As a first offering, ‘Tryouts For The Human Race’ works quite effectively. The vocal is left to take the lead, and even that couldn’t be more different from Russ Mael’s huge, theatrical chops. Opening with a descending riff, the minimalist musical arrangement pulls in the listener, before TWB fills the verse with minimalistic notes. The strums are so light, that if played at a regular volume, the music initially sounds merely percussive, just marking time. This, of course, allows the vocal to take centre stage: and on that score, Chelsea delivers a winner. Her chosen approach sounds natural, yet rich; her tones curl around a melody that occasionally sounds sinister, and at other times, oddly sedate. Admittedly, anything measured against Russ Mael’s original take will sound as if it’s just being a little too cautious, but it has a great tone, and given time to adjust, it suits the minimalist music. Tackling the chorus, the performer has little choice but to reach for higher registers, but this, too, sits well against the stripped down music. A little better, ‘Academy Award Performance’ takes a far more traditional approach to the instrument in hand, with TWB sharing a faster tempo and harder rhythmic edge, which leads to something that almost feels Hawaiian, and certainly like something that has the air of a final track on an old singer-songwriter LP. Here, of course, it isn’t a reflective afterthought, but a key moment in a reimagined work. As before, though, once you get past the initial flash of inspiration, it’s down to the voice to hold interest. Chelsea has her own strengths in this department, and befitting of the lyric, she chooses a tone that feels very staged. What’s most interesting here, though, is the recording’s percussive element. The music is backed by occasional rattling to fill space: the voice is offset by the sounds of tap dancing, further suggesting the feeling that this would work better as part of an offbeat stage production.

Moving on, ‘La Dolce Vita’, Spear adopts a softer vocal tone, and with that, an even softer uke sound. This is so stripped of energy, it actually sounds in danger of floating into its own dream-like state, and its only occasional trumpet sounds that jolt the listener. It’s easy to hear what was intended here, but it’s a little too fey, but luckily the brilliant ‘Beat The Clock’ redresses the balance. A much loved number from the original LP – and one of the finest Sparks singles – this track manages to retain its original energy. It no longer sounding like a faux theme tune for an imaginary quiz show, and misses those cool, pulsing beats, of course, but Spear’s harder ukulele sounds and some busy-ish chords do sterling work in conveying a relatively energetic sound. At least, that is, until the instrumental break where ascending and descending notes work in tandem with intermittent strums to create something that sounds unfinished. Thankfully – and in keeping with the first couple of tracks here – the vocal makes up for that, and Chelsea shares a very familiar melody with a real enthusiasm. Regardless of the sparse musical backdrop, this remains a number that should be recognisable to everyone old enough to remember when this was a hit in August ’79, gracing the top twenty in one of the finest charts in history.

There’s another small misstep when ‘My Other Voice’ reverts to the Hawaiian style melodies, occasionally sounding like a quickly rendered version of George Harrison’s recording of Harold Arlen’s ‘Between The Devil and The Deep Blue Sea’, but since it’s been condensed into approximately ninety seconds, it doesn’t hang around long enough for the listener to get genuinely upset, and creating a bigger finish, the album’s title cut works more slowly, but in doing so, creates something a little more interesting. Intermittent notes form a sparse intro, before Chelsea recreates a simple melody for the verse where the chords set up an almost mechanical melody. This is counterbalanced by her best vocal where high toned melodies glide over a chopping backdrop. By clinging onto the original vocal as closely as possible, this is as close to “tradition” as this musical adventure dares to tread, but it’s hard to imagine it working any other way. As the last notes fade, it becomes very clear that – along with ‘Beat The Clock’ – this cover provides another valid reason why this covers album should exist, and be appreciated by the Sparks fan base, at least occasionally.

In fairness, the source material for this release is superb: Sparks’ synthesized classic is one of the great albums of the late 70s. Granted, it’s of its time: aside from Russell Mael’s falsetto moments, which always made Sparks seem like they were on another planet, everything comes directly from the cusp of the 80s. It shares the last gasps of disco, and has a strong nod to producer Giorgio Moroder’s guiding hand, that would feel out of date by the time Sparks recorded ‘Angst In My Pants’ in ’82, but it retains a vitality that’s impossible to ignore. That vitality is often missing when everything is pulled back, and if approached in the wrong mood, this ukulele venture could end up sounding like a tossed off novelty. However, Travels With Brindle’s rather earnest approach suggests she’s deathly serious about all of this and what transpires is something that would certainly make Ron Mael offer a very pointed side-eye. The Sparks Brothers would certainly be amused, or even flattered, but this probably isn’t something that’ll entertain anyone but the hardcore Sparks-head in the longer term. With a couple of exceptions, the songs ending up feeling a little repetitive at best, and sketchy at worst. That’s not to say they’re ever bad; it’s more that the inquisitive Sparks fan would be much better off exploring this a track at a time for best results.

January 2025