7. Sparks – No. 1 In Heaven

Morrissey’s a big Sparks fan; it must be a Manchester thing for people whose surnames start with ‘Morris’. Sparks are kind of elusive; sometimes you’ll hear something by them and think it’s rubbish, but I keep going back to No. 1 In Heaven because it’s a disco record that has Giorgio Moroder – and the thing about Moroder is that he was using sequencers, but there’s real playing over the top of them. It wasn’t like machine music; it has synthesisers and it is robotic, but it’s got a disco groove about it. And I like that Russel Mael has got a weird voice; you just can’t understand it. Me and Gillian have always tried to do a song that sounds like No. 1 In Heaven, but it’s never worked out. I kind of see a parallel with that particular sound and when we were becoming New Order.