Sparks- Kimono My House (1974)

I was astounded and frustrated, nine years old.
Top ten countdown- at number 2 this week it's ...Sparks...
Number one records are significant when you're a kid. and this was the era when getting a number one involved selling a seriously eyewatering amount of singles (at least that's what the mythologists of seventies culture would have us believe).
There was , I concluded, no justice in a world where such a masterpiece as This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us could be kept from the 'number one spot' by the faux do wop and awful caps of The Rubettes - no white man should ever wear a cap like that.
And of course, the appeal of the group could only be enhanced by Ron Mael- forget the piquant wordplay which characterised his songwriting genius - here was a guy, 28 years old with the coolest job in the world, a pop star, whose image rested on not appearing cool. He was a schoolteacher, a librarian, Hitler, Blakey from On The Buses...