History Music / Stereolab

** The track "International Colouring Contest" from ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' serves as a tribute to the late Lucia Pamela.

* EpicRocking: With the exception of ''Chemical Chords'', every album has at least one track longer than 6 minutes. The 18-minute "Jenny Ondioline" and the 17-minute "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse" stand out.

** The track "International Colouring Contest" in ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' serves as a tribute to the late Lucia Pamela.

** In ''Sound-Dust'', the entirety of the track "Nothing to Do with Me" contains lines taken from the dark comedy sketch show ''{{Series/Jam}}''.

* HourglassPlot: Boiled down to just a few lines in "Motoroller Scalatron."

was to serve society. Now\\
the roles have been reversed.\\

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but returned to play a series of live dates for 2019-2021. They also re-released most of their old discography in [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition deluxe editions]], and even put out a new compilation of b-sides and rarities.

** ''Fab Four Suture'' (2006) Collection of singles.

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: In the early days, they had a fondness for naming songs after electronic and other keyboard instruments: "Farfisa", "Harmonium", "Mellotron", "Jenny Ondioline", "Narco Martenot" and so on.

** ''Emperor Tomato Ketchup'' is named after the English translation of a controversial Japanese film, whilst its' album artwork is derived from a Music/BelaBartok record from the 1960s.

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but returned to play a series of live dates for 2019-2021.

* MoneyDearBoy: Their reasoning behind playing live again in 2019, which coincided with expanded reissues of all their studio albums from ''Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements'' to ''Margerine Eclipse''.

** ''Emperor Tomato Ketchup'' primarily took inspiration from krautrock, bossa nova, and most 1960's music.

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but returned to play a series of live dates for 2019-2020.

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but have recently announced a series of live dates for 2019.

* NonindicativeName:
** ''Stunning Debut Album''. Neither a debut nor an album.[[note]]It was a vinyl single, and it was preceded by the ''Super 45'' EP.[[/note]]
** ''Not Music'' has, in fact, music.

** ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night'' is partly named after [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBRA_(avant-garde_movement) CoBrA]], a short-lived avant-garde movement. From the same album, "The Free Design" is a tribute to [[Music/TheFreeDesign the band of the same name]].

* FishEyeLens: The cover art of ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' and its singles consisted of a fish-eye photo of a synthesizer.

** The album covers for ''Dots and loops'' and ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night''.

** ''Switched On Stereolab'' (1992) Collection of their first 3 EP's.

* ''[[LongTitle Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night]]'' (1999)

* ConceptAlbum: ''Chemical Chords'' and ''Not Music'' are conceptually linked, but it's a musical concept rather than a lyrical one. Gane and Sadier generated chord sequences at random, then built songs off of them. They took the catchier songs from these sessions and released them as ''Chemical Chords''. Then they took the ''weirder'' songs (plus a few remixes) and released those as ''Not Music''.

* NewSoundAlbum: Despite their reputation for rarely varying their sound, the groop did actually pull this a couple of times:

** ''Dots and Loops'' was a [[GenreRoulette mixture]] of drum'n'bass, jazz and electronica.
** ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night'' had more of a jazz defined edge.

** The track "International Colouring Contest" in ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' is essentially a tribute to the late Lucia Pamela.

Stereolab were a French/English rock [[InsistentTerminology groop]] who played what might best be described as either "avant-garde M.O.R." or "space age bachelor pad music". They formed in 1990 from the ashes of the politically astute JanglePop band [=McCarthy=] and were among the first wave of PostRock musicians, mixing {{Krautrock}} and "motorik" rhythms, pointillist fuzzed-out guitar melodies, vintage synthesizers, and lounge-pop influences. Said lounge-pop grew in influence over the years until, by 1997's ''Dots and Loops'', they were basically playing pop music--albeit, pop music from an alternate universe where RaygunGothic never went out of fashion, where Music/BurtBacharach and Music/TheFreeDesign are revered as musical gods, and where [[EpicRocking 11 minutes is a perfectly acceptable song length]].

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: In the early days, they had a fondness for naming songs after electronic and other keyboard instruments: "Farfisa", "Harmonium", "Mellotron" "Jenny Ondioline", "Narco Martenot" and so on.

** ''Dots and Loops'' was a mixture of drum'n'bass, jazz, and electronica.

* FishEyeLens: The cover art of ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' is a fish-eye photo of a synthesizer.

* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: In the early days, they had a fondness for naming songs after electronic and other keyboard instruments: "Farfisa", "Harmonium", "Jenny Ondioline", "Narco Martenot" and so on.

* NewSoundAlbum: Despite their reputation for never varying their sound, they did actually pull this a couple of times:

** ''Dots and Loops'' used drum'n'bass and jazz stylings.

** "Stunning Debut Album". Neither a debut nor an album.[[note]]It was a vinyl single, and it was preceded by the ''Super 45'' EP.[[/note]]

* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: Lætitia Sadier is from France, and thus the band has ''a lot'' of songs entirely in the French language.

* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: The band has ''a lot'' of songs featuring French, including many that are entirely in the language.

Stereolab were a French/English rock [[InsistentTerminology groop]] who played what might best be described as either "avant-garde M.O.R." or "space age bachelor pad music". They formed in 1990 from the ashes of the politically astute JanglePop band [=McCarthy=] and were among the first wave of PostRock musicians, mixing {{Krautrock}} and "motorik" rhythms, pointillist fuzzed-out guitar melodies, vintage synthesizers, and lounge-pop influences. Said lounge-pop grew in influence over the years until, by 1997's ''Dots and Loops'', they were basically playing pop music--albeit, pop music from an alternate universe where RaygunGothic never went out of fashion, where Music/BurtBacharach and Music/TheFreeDesign are revered as musical gods, and where 11 minutes is a perfectly acceptable song length.

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, before announcing a series of live dates set for 2019.

They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but have announced a series of live dates for 2019.