Look: Another album cover with kitties!!

Sparks, the quirky team best known in the U.S. for their duet with Jane Wiedlin on “Cool Places” back in 1983, has run into a spot of trouble with the BBC. Though Sparks has enjoyed a reasonable level of success throughout Europe for the past two decades, the BBC is refusing to play their new single because of its naughty, naughty title — “Dick Around:”

Despite the fact that Ron and Russell were invited into the studio as guests of the Breakfast Show on BBC London 94.9FM, the host Jono Coleman was banned from playing the single ‘Dick Around’. Jono and his co-host Jo good were obviously embarrassed - particularly as they quite clearly knew that the term means wasting time. The Maels were upset that they had been asked to be interviewed live in the studio, and then not have their single played.

Ron Mael this morning raged: “the BBC has officially killed off our new single ‘Dick Around’, ostensibly through rather childish objections to the title, an innocent reference to the idle life. That a piece of music can be condemned purely by its title without the ‘decision makers’ even having the decency to open the CD case is a travesty and an insult to both us as the creators of the music and to the listeners of the BBC.”

Ahhh, those beloved, misguided, uptight Brits: Always trying to protect their children from the perverse influences of popular culture. But since they’re the ones who gave the world “Trainspotting”…are they really entitled to be quite so judgmental?