When I was a wee undergraduate student toiling away at my college radio station, there was a fairly sizable chunk of the S section of our music stacks that always struck me as mysterious and strangely alluring. The station had a big batch of records by a new-to-me band called Sparks, every one of the jackets worn ragged by years of being plucked from the shelf for airplay. The band had just released their fifteenth studio album when I first crossed into that on-air studio. We didn’t have their full catalog, but there were a lot of them there.

Whenever I dared to drop the needle on one of those records, the music that came out was as wild as any I’d heard to that point. It was recognizably pop, but a version of it that was like looking at a funhouse mirror through a kaleidoscope. It was exciting and inscrutable and even a little unsettling. I didn’t play their music much. I wasn’t bold enough for that.

All these years later, I have an easier time appreciating the wild invention of Sparks. And I’m delighted that the duo is still out there making defiantly weird and wonderful pop music. Their new single, “JanSport Backpack,” is a delight. It’s odd, fiercely catchy, and somehow deeply heartfelt. It’s Sparks. Only Sparks could make this song.

Mad!, the new album from Sparks, is scheduled for release in May.