Kimono My House is the third studio album by American rock band Sparks, released on May 1, 1974, by Island Records.

In 1973, prior to the recording of the album, the brothers Ron and Russell Mael had accepted an offer to relocate to the United Kingdom in order to participate in the glam rock scene.

The new album embraced the more pop-oriented side of the Mael brothers' song-writing, which had previously been evident in songs such as "Wonder Girl" and "High C".

The album slotted in with the current popularity of glam rock—which was dominating the charts—in particular, the more experimental and electronic sound of Roxy Music and David Bowie.

The pop-cultural references, puns and peculiar sexual content, sung often in falsetto by Russell Mael, set Sparks apart from other groups.

On the previous two albums Ron had primarily used a Wurlitzer electronic piano, but he found that the instrument did not stand up well to the rigours of touring, because the metal reeds that generated the notes frequently broke.

Although the tonal quality was markedly inferior to a Wurlitzer or a Fender Rhodes – Mael later described the piano setting on the Electra-Piano as "incredibly terrible" – the RMI had several notable advantages for a touring musician.

Unlike the electro-mechanical Wurlitzer and Rhodes, the RMI was a completely solid-state instrument, with each note generated by its own dedicated LC oscillator circuit, so it was both more robust and lighter than a Wurlitzer, and the tone generator circuits were very stable and did not drift out of tune, which was a common problem for many early electronic performance keyboards like the Minimoog synthesiser.

To compensate for the very basic sound of the Electra-Piano, Mael fed the instrument through an Echoplex tape echo unit, giving it the highly distinctive "shimmer" that features prominently on their breakthrough single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us".

[5] The original concept for the cover came from Ron Mael, who was inspired by a Japanese World War II propaganda photograph he had seen in an old wartime edition of Life magazine.

However, in place of the Churchill photo, Mael's homemade mockup substituted the cover of Sparks' previous album, A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing (1973).

The inner sleeve for the original vinyl record was printed with a full set of song lyrics on one side and a black and white photograph of the Mael brothers, framed in a spotlight, on the reverse.

Upon its release, New Musical Express published an enthusiastic one page review dubbing the album "an instant classic".

Reviewer Ian Mac Donald wrote that all of the songs "sound like standards", adding "this record makes you jump in every sense" before concluding: "Kimono My House is the real breakthrough – I think you're gonna love it".

[22] Reviewing Kimono My House for Rolling Stone in 1974, Gordon Fletcher was complimentary of Ron Mael's "whimsical" lyrics, which he felt revealed "a unique (if slightly warped) perspective and a volatile sense of humor", but found that they tended to be obscured by Winwood's "obfuscating" production.

[23] The Spokesman Review's critic wrote that it was "the most invigorating appealing" album "that I've heard in longer than I can recall at the moment".

[24] English singer and Smiths frontman Morrissey has frequently cited Kimono My House as one of his favorite albums and famously wrote a letter to the NME, at the age of 15, extolling its virtues.

[29] John Frusciante of Red Hot Chili Peppers named Adrian Fisher's guitar playing on Kimono My House and its follow-up Propaganda as one of his influences for the album By the Way (2002).

A remastered 40th Anniversary Edition was released on December 15, 2014, on vinyl only, including previously unreleased demo material from the band's archives.

Stewart Mason of AllMusic said: “One of the many highlights on the phenomenal Kimono My House, "Thank God It's Not Christmas" is the archetypal song from Sparks’ Island Records era.

The lyrics are truly magnificent, both in their literal meaning and the way they work with the music, creating a rhythmic counter-melody that echoes Fisher's guitar line, and Muff Winwood’s crystal-clear production emphasizes the song's soaring, anthemic elements; although "Amateur Hour" and "This Town Ain’t Big Enough for Both of Us" were the hits and "Here In Heaven" is more beloved by fans, "Thank God It's Not Christmas" is possibly the album's highest point.