Before I deliver this stern message to Stereolab‘s Chemical Chords album can you help me work through my reactions over the past 2 or 3 months? Since buying this CD I have spun it a good dozen times at work and in the car? Townspeople have helped me in the past in such moments of utter befuddlement, and I hope you can help me now.
Over the years I’ve heard some other albums by Stereolab with songs that make some sense to me, but this new album, Chemical Chords, which reviews and blog postings I’ve seen indicate that longtime Stereolab fans dig just fine, sounds to me like an endless stream of Target ads. I’m reminded of the opening scene of Fight Club, with the Ed Norton Jr. character in his Ikea catalog-like apartment, with the descriptions and price tags popping up all around him. I feel like I’m being sold something, like a neon beanbag. Do I need a neon beanbag?
Stereolab, “Self Portrait with ‘Electric Brain'”
This song title catches my eye with its hints at postmodern art and the use of single quotes within the standard song title’s double quotes. The song title would look great on my glass and chrome coffee table…if I had a glass and chrome coffee table! Actually, if I had such a coffee table and this slight song was playing atop it I’d half expect Alex and his droog buddies to break in and smash my living room to bits. I know, like, and greatly respect many of you who like Stereolab. The stuff you’ve played me over the years is usually interesting. Do you like this new album, or have I been reading the reviews and blog postings of ass-kissing Cool Patrol wannabes? Tell me, my friends, that you know what I’m talking about – or point out the error of my ways.
Stereolab, “Fractal Dream of a Thing”
Here’s another song with a museum-piece title that, at best, makes me horny for tastefully tarted-up 35-year-old women spending their newly acquired excess cash at an upscale department store. Is this what I’m supposed to be feeling while listening to the new Stereolab album? Is this what they’d consider “mission accomplished” and high-five, or celebrate through whatever polite variant would suit their style?
I’ve been giving this album a sincere try. I’ve been trying to get inside of the mind of someone who might fancy this platter, and all I can think of is catalog blurbs, slim models, and my credit cards. I badly want to dash off the following note to Stereolab’s new album:
I am not for sale!
Before I do, can you help me check my line of reasoning? Thanks.
I am only now listening to the first track you posted, but here are a few thoughts. From the beginning, with the name suggesting Phillips Sound Labs and neo-lounge before that was in it’s second hey-dey, Stereolab has been fond of these aesthetics, though in the first years, they always weighted the fluff down with some good guitar oomph. Their most simple undiluted pop is their weakest hand. They also veer toward pothead based out of focus meandering, too, when the noise seems to be a half-hearted attempt at “keeping it real.” But in between, they do some killer pop and some very effective extended noisy jam bits. So in the range of Stereolab, what I’m hearing on these tracks is stuff I wouldn’t return to often.
And I do understand the sound of credit, but I don’t know they were thinking that. Maybe they’ve sold music to fashion chains, and they need another check? I don’t know. I have 7 or 8 of their albums, but this isn’t doing anything for me.
BTW, I laughed at the “tastefully tarted up 35 year-old,” but then thought, “isn’t ’35 year-old’ supposed to suggest someone older than the usual cute twiggy model? And if so, is 35 supposed to be funny-old, or double entendre-funny, given she would be a decade younger than we?”
Stereolab is to Krautrock what the Stray Cats are to rockabilly; at best a gateway drug to the better stuff.
I think the latter, General. To you and db, a hearty THANK YOU. Coming from you two I’m that much closer to addressing my note to the band’s new album.
Must everything be such a production? Honestly.
I’m afraid I can’t help you, because I like the new album just fine. However, I will say that you’re correct in hearing something different in than you’ve heard in any previous Stereolab record you might have heard. Specifically, I get a strong vibe from this album that this is probably their last, or else they’re going to make a massive change if they do stay together after this. (I’ve heard nothing about this one way or the other, incidentally. It’s just the sense I’m getting from the album.)
What CHEMICAL CHORDS sounds like to me — and I say this as almost certainly the biggest Stereolab completist round these parts — is like Tim Gane decided to create an alternate-universe Stereolab greatest hits album out of entirely new songs. What I mean by that is that to my ears, there’s some element of each song that’s reminiscent of one of their prior musical eras. (And yes, they have different eras: the knock on Stereolab that all their songs sound alike comes from people like…well, Buskirk, who hasn’t noticed that Stereolab released their last overtly krautrock-influenced record in 1993.) So the album doesn’t sound like one particular old Stereolab record, it sounds — in bits and flashes — like ALL of Stereolab’s old records, shuffled into different configurations.
I’d go into detail on this, but it’s late and I have real work to do before I can go to bed.
I’ve noticed, I just sold off all the records they made since then. Sure, it is all pleasant enough but somehow those records haven’t aged very well for me, they felt really same-y. When I look back at the frivolousness of the’90’s I tend to think of Stereolab, in a “Wow, remember when we were all really excited about Stereolab? What were we thinking?” kinda way.
I think this post eliminates the need for a similar rant about Tortoise I was planning, under the headline:
Tortoise: King Crimson or Vangelis?
I bought a recent album of theirs after hearing a dynamite song in a surf movie soundtrack, and initially enjoyed it. Eventually, though, I was overtaken by the sense that these guys were producing the modern day equivalent of the “Chariots Of Fire” soundtrack and making hipsters believe it was cool. I had a friend in juior high whose parents made out to Barry White albums for much the same reason.
I love it, Hrrundi! Don’t let this rant steal your planned rant’s thunder.
Tortoise, another 90’s phenomenon. I like their early 12″ single “Gamera”/”Cave Dweller Society” and their second full-length but they really seemed to be heading somewhere in which they never arrived. A feel the same way about The Sea and Cake, who share some of the same members.
Truth is the majority of rock groups exhaust their ideas in two or three albums then struggle to not repeat themselves (or they don’t struggle, pleasing their fans by making records that sound like an “alternate-universe greatest hits”).
This partially explains my interest in jazz, where long-running groups are the exception, and musicians are more likely to mingle as inspiration strikes them.
Being the 2nd biggest Stereolab completist on this list, I was quite disappointed in the new record. Slight and boring would be my review. And I really liked the last record, Margerine Eclipse. Though the two records share similar textures, the hooks just aren’t there for me on this record.
Buskirk: I’m thinking you didn’t get my point. Must not have explained it well.
When I listen to Stereolab I really don’t think about their influences, or their contemporaries for that matter. I just kind of turn off my mind relax and float downstream. I guess I do prefer their more long-form material, and the new one does seem comparatively pop rather than trance, but I like it fine. If ad agencies have discovered this sound, which I’m unaware of, it doesn’t invalidate it, though I guess I could see how it could take the edge off your enjoyment. Maybe the solution is more to watch fewer Target ads rather than to listen to less Stereolab?
I like Tortoise a lot. Rock(ish) music without lyrics/vocals to hang onto is always a tough sell. I also think our consumerist craving for novelty (to which I do not claim to be immune) works against bands like Tortoise or Stereolab or The Sea & Cake, which seem to spring forth fully formed with a fairly unique sound. Then we somehow expect them to surprise us with every release, rather than continue to make fine music within the framework they’ve chosen to explore. I realize there’s a fine line, and artists can certainly exhaust their resources and sound tired. But I do worry about demanding too much of artists. “Blow my mind again or go away” seems a bit unreasonable. Sometimes I like to hear the sound of slow evolution.
i like stereolab. i’ve got just about all their releases.
their show at irving plaza was a feelgood warm and fuzzy of 90s nostalgiaisms. nancy and i left pleased that we had gotten our money’s worth. and their set lends support to 48’s “parallel universe greatest hits album” theory. they played the hits, but they chose songs that went well with the new album.
i’m down with slocum’s description of stereolab, though i don’t mind the meanderings or the noise as much.
i don’t mind their obtuse material, and, like 48, i don’t think all their shit sounds alike.
my favorite stereolab album, by far, is abc music. i think i like it best because it’s live.
by contrast, i think this album is a little too soft, produced, and deliberate sounding for me. i’m also getting a little tired of the cutesy song titles meant to describe whatever objects / sensations / genres / styles they’re combining.
so mod, even though i like them alot, i know where you’re coming from.
BigSteve wrote: “Maybe the solution is more to watch fewer Target ads rather than to listen to less Stereolab?”
I write: brilliant!
“Buskirk: I’m thinking you didn’t get my point. Must not have explained it well. “
Sorry 48, I realize I’m being a bit “Accuser-esque” in my dissing of your love for Stereolab. I’m sure there are bands I like who I continue to collect although they’ve been spinning artistic wheels (Sonic Youth perhaps). After collecting this many years though I realize that there are too many bands whom I purchase their new records, listen to them for a couple weeks then file them away pretty much forever, returning only to the first few releases I was originally enthusiastic about. I may listen to a new Bowie release when it comes out, but if I was putting on Bowie it would only be something from his first decade of recording (a longer stretch than most, I might add). Rather than demanding someone “blow my mind again” I tend to move on to someone whose got a brand new mousetrap.
(I like calling you 48; makes you sound like an agent of CONTROL)
Pince nez: It’s KONTROL, db.
There, that felt good.
It’s been good hearing from longtime Target shoppers on this issue. Have any of you K-Mart shoppers in the Halls of Rock checked out these Stereolab tracks? Do you care to comment on their value and convenience?
The thing db said earlier about the value of jazz musicians keeping themselves fluid and not being tied to one set of bandmates or musical style is something I’ve heard him say before that always makes me wonder: Could rock ‘n roll survive and prosper in such an arrangement? The rock ‘n roll I tend to like seems so much about the band dynamic, the “superhero” powers of the band members, the clear line of steady progression and ties back to earlier songs and motifs. I think of the few years in which members of Cream and Traffic shuffled around, but beside that time it’s a bit mind blowing to think of a year in which the 1971 Stones lineup release an album one year and 2 years later Mick and Keef drop the other guys to release an album with Ringo, Steve Winwood, and the bassist from Free.
Bands are so 20th century. All the cool kids have collectives now.
Yeah, yeah, but are the “collectives” really adding anything to the long run? It’s still the bands and the “artists” who get most of the acclaim, most of the best musicians, most of the tail… How fluid can rock actually be? Am I, like, 732 years old for even asking this question?
Yes.
It is not.
It was KAOS vs CONTROL. Not KAOS VS. KONTROL.
Well, funny you should mention that in this context, because I don’t believe Stereolab has ever had a stable lineup outside of Laetitia Sadier, Tim Gane and drummer Andy Ramsay, and even Ramsay didn’t come on board until later. They’ve never even had a stable size for the band: I’ve seen them play with anywhere between four and seven people onstage, expanding and contracting from one tour to the next. It was back up to six when we saw them last month.
As for the song titles: Charity and I have a standing joke that whenever one of us puts together a particularly odd-sounding string of words, the other says “Wasn’t that a Stereolab EP?”
Frivolous? Not at all–I love the early Stereolab records. I never get tired of their variations on Krautrock and VU guitar drone. But I also admire them for not painting themselves into a corner (see Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, among others).
Fact is if a band is not planning to burn out quickly, they need to sort of plan out their future records, which is what I think Sterolab did/does. And for all of the talk about their being commercial friendly, keep in mind they are often subverting the capitalist ideology behind space-age bachelor pop. Take a look at the lyrics for “Ping Pong” some time.