	Sparks' last album was released in 1988, and while it scored a couple of club hits in the US, had not been commercially successful. Critically the group had been receiving mixed reviews since their 1984 album "Pulling Rabbits Out of a Hat". While promoting "Interior Design", Sparks banded together with the French duo Les Rita Mitsouko and released the single "Singing in the Shower" which was a moderate hit in France. Sparks then went on a temporary hiatus while the brothers spent the late 1980s and early 1990s concentrating on film-making, particularly an attempt to make a Japanese comic strip, "Mai, The Psychic Girl", into a movie. They had hoped to have Tsui Hark direct with the actress-musician Christi Haydon voicing the lead character. Russell Mael had initially met Haydon when he admired her look while she was working on the cosmetics counter of a department store . Haydon's only experience at the time had been as a long running extra of the TV show "". Despite interest from Tim Burton and six years' work on the project, it came to nothing. 