Line #31 Music/Stereolab


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/stereolab.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:''We're not adult orientated.'']]
3
4	Stereolab are 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]].
5
6	Tim Gane (guitar and keys) and Lætitia Sadier (lead vocals, guitar, and keys) were the only consistent members of the groop. Mary Hansen (harmony vocals, guitar, and keys), who joined in 1992 and died in 2002, and Andy Ramsay (drums), who joined in 1993, were also key personnel during their tenure.
7
8	They went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009, but returned to play a series of live dates for 2019-2022. They also re-released a chunk of their old discography: [[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition deluxe editions]] of their albums from ''Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements'' through ''Margerine Eclipse'', and a BoxedSet of their ''Switched On'' compilations--then put out two new entries in the ''Switched On'' compilation series.
9
10	[[folder:Albums and Compilations]]
11	For a comprehensive discography, see [[http://www.stereolab.co.uk/discography/list/ their website]].
12
13	* ''Peng!'' (1992)
14	** ''Switched On'' (1992) Collection of their first 3 EP's.
15	* ''The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music'' (1993)
16	* ''Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements'' (1993)
17	* ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' (1994)
18	** ''Refried Ectoplasm: Switched On, Vol. 2'' (1995) Collection of singles and rarities from 1993 up to 1995.
19	* ''Emperor Tomato Ketchup'' (1996)
20	* ''Dots and Loops'' (1997)
21	** ''Aluminum Tunes: Switched On, Vol. 3'' (1998) Collection of EP tracks, singles, and rarities from 1995 up to 1998.
22	* ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night'' (1999)
23	* ''Sound-Dust'' (2001)
24	** ''ABC Music: The Radio 1 Sessions'' (2002) Collection of live recordings.
25	* ''Margerine Eclipse'' (2004)
26	** ''Oscillons from the Anti-Sun'' (2005) Collection of EP tracks and previously-unreleased material.
27	** ''Fab Four Suture'' (2006) An odd release that splits the difference between a traditional album and a compilation. [[note]]All the songs were recorded about the same time and intended to be bundled together--but the groop released all the tracks as singles first.[[/note]]
28	** ''Serene Velocity: A Stereolab Anthology'' (2006) GreatestHitsAlbum, focusing on the material they released on the Elektra label.
29	* ''Chemical Chords'' (2008)
30	* ''Not Music'' (2010)
31	** ''Electrically Possessed: Switched On, Vol. 4'' (2021) Collection of EP tracks, singles, rarities and unreleased material from 1999-2008.
32	** ''Pulse of the Early Brain: Switched On, Vol. 5'' (scheduled for Sept 2022) Collection of EP tracks, singles, rarities and unreleased material from each stage of their career.
33	[[/folder]]
34	-----
35	!!The groop provides examples of:
36
37	* AcCENTUpontheWrongSylLABle: Very often. Mostly comes from Lætitia Sadier not being a native English speaker.
38	* AfterTheEnd: "One Small Step".
39	* AuthorTract: The majority of their lyrics push a Marxist / Situationist worldview. Some are more subtle about it [[{{Anvilicious}} than others]]. It doesn't help that the two main members of the band from time to time give conflicting statements about this, as reported by Website/TheOtherWiki:
40	-->'''Lætitia Sadier''': "Basically I want to change the world. I want to make people think about how they live every day, shake them a bit."
41	-->'''Tim Gane''': "[N]one of us are Marxists ... I've never even read Marx."
42	* BilingualBonus: "Pause" incorporates a bit of found sound, "an eerie childlike robotic voice" speaking in German that Tim Gane taped off his home radio. For years, he thought it was a spy code broadcast, but in 2019 an actual German speaker told him it was really the East German fishing forecast for the North Sea.
43	* BoleroEffect: A lot of their earlier, dronier tracks like "Stomach Worm" and "Golden Ball" make prominent use of this.
44	* BookEnds: ''Fab Four Suture'' opens with "Kyberneticka Babicka Pt 1." and ends with "Kyberneticka Babicka Pt 2." Both songs are trancelike variations on the same melody.
45	* {{Bowdlerise}}: The album version of "Jenny Ondioline" features a line in the chorus, "I don't care that democracy's being fucked"--although it's easy to miss, because the vocals are so low in the mix. The [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsIBzVSZeIQ music video]] uses an alternate mix with the vocals slightly clearer, and that particular line has been edited so Sadier now sings "sucked" instead of "fucked".
46	* BreadAndCircuses: A few tracks from ''Dots and Loops'' seem to be about Spectacle, the Marxist concept that [[{{escapism}} escapist]] media merely exist to keep the masses from questioning the status quo.
47	-->This is the future, of an illusion,\
48	aggressive culture, of despotism. \
49	Living fantasy, of an immortal;\
50	the reality, of an animal.
51	--->-- "Contronatura"
52	** They also have a song actually ''called'' "Pain et spectacles".
53	* ConceptAlbum: ''Chemical Chords'' and ''Not Music'' are conceptually linked, but it's more of 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''.
54	* EpicRocking: With the exception of ''Chemical Chords'', every album has at least one track longer than 6 minutes. Particular standouts include "Jenny Ondioline" (18 minutes), "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse" (17 minutes) and the extended version of "Blue Milk" (17 minutes)[[note]]This was only on the 1999 Duophonic Discs vinyl issue of ''Cobra and Phases Group...'', and the 2019 reissues. On all other versions of the album, "Blue Milk" was edited down to 11:30.[[/note]].
55	* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench: Lætitia Sadier and Morgane Lhote are from France, and thus the band has ''a lot'' of songs entirely in the French language.
56	* FingerFirearms: Cover art on their early releases ''John Cage Bubblegum'', ''Switched On'', and ''Refried Ectoplasm'' feature a cartoon man (named "Cliff") [[SeanConneryIsAboutToShootYou pointing his finger-gun straight at the viewer.]] And on the cover of ''Peng!'', Cliff is actually shooting.
57	* FishEyeLens: The cover art of ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' and its associated singles consisted of a fish-eye photo of a synthesizer.
58	* GainaxEnding: The bittersweet post-rock/dream pop of "Lock-Groove Lullaby", and by extension ''Transient Random Noise Bursts'', ends with a sudden cut to a sample of Perrey and Kingsley's "The Savers" and a deep, distorted groaning sound in its last 30 seconds. "I'm Going Out of my Way" ends similarly on a sample of Perry and Kingsley's "One Note Samba / Spanish Flea".
59	* GratuitousPanning: Used deliberately, and to unusual effect.
60	** In "Analogue Rock", from ''Transient Random Noise Bursts'', the organ is panned hard to the left channel, and the guitars, drums, and most vocals are panned hard to the right. They abruptly swap places, briefly, during the second verse.
61	** ''Margerine Eclipse'', and its associated [=EPs=] ''Instant 0 in the Universe'' and ''Rose, My Rocket-Brain!'', are all mixed in "dual mono", meaning every instrument is panned hard to one side or the other. Muting either channel results in the songs sounding radically different.
62	* HeavyMetalUmlaut: Weirdly enough, they were credited as Stêréölåb on [[https://www.discogs.com/release/1027271-St%C3%AAr%C3%A9%C3%B6l%C3%A5b-Subm%C3%A5rin%C3%A9r-Spacewatch an obscure 7" flexidisc]], which was distributed with the ''Spacewatch'' music zine. (This was a split release with fellow indie rockers Submariner, who similarly became "Submårinér" for this 7", so the superfluous accents were most likely ''Spacewatch'''s doing.)
63	* HourglassPlot: Boiled down to just a few lines in "Tomorrow Is Already Here".
64	-->Originally this setup,\
65	was to serve society.\
66	Now, the roles \
67	have been reversed.\
68	They want society to serve the institutions.
69	* 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", "Motoroller Scalotron", and so on.
70	* IndecipherableLyrics: In the first half of "Golden Ball", the vocal track is so distorted, it's nearly impossible to make out any words.
71	* InheritedIlliteracyTitle: ''The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music''. (Oddly enough, "Bachelor" was only misspelled on the front cover--the album spine and back cover spells it correctly.) Which also featured the song "The Groop Played Chord X" and inspired future album liner notes (and many a reviewer) to refer to the band as "the groop".
72	* InSeriesNickname: Album liner notes often referred to the band as "the groop". In interviews, Gane and Sadier would also sometimes call it "the Lab".
73	* LimitedLyricsSong: Stereolab are quite fond of this, and many tracks from ''Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements'' and ''Emperor Tomato Ketchup'' lean into it heavily. For example, "Crest" features only 3 lines repeated throughout its 6-minute runtime;
74	--> If there's been a way to build it
75	--> There'll be a way to destroy it
76	--> Things are not all that out of control
77	* LongestSongGoesLast:
78	** ''Peng!'' closes with "Surrealchemist" (7:13).
79	** ''Margerine Eclipse'' ends with "Dear Marge" (6:56).
80	* LyricalDissonance: "Ping-Pong", an upbeat ditty about a cycle of global economic depression, war, and all-too-brief economic recovery.
81	* MinimalisticCoverArt:
82	** Many of the groop's earlier releases (including ''Peng!'' and ''John Cage Bubblegum'') only consisted of a cartoon character named Cliff placed against a plain coloured background.
83	** The album covers for ''Dots and Loops'' and ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night''.
84	* MultilingualSong: Most of their tunes are either completely in English or completely in French, but there are a few songs that feature both languages about equally, like "Lock-Groove Lullaby", "Prisoner of Mars", and "Captain Easychord".
85	* NeverTrustATitle:
86	** ''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]]
87	** ''Not Music'' has much more music than the title implies.
88	* NewSoundAlbum:
89	** ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' was where their interest in lounge and exotica really started to come into play in a big way.
90	** ''Emperor Tomato Ketchup'' saw the electronic elements become more prominent, creating songs round loops rather than guitar riffs and primarily taking inspiration from krautrock, bossa nova, and most 1960's music.
91	** ''Dots and Loops'' was essentially a [[GenreRoulette mixture]] of drum'n'bass, jazz and electronica.
92	** ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night'' had more of a jazz defined edge in comparison to ''Dots and Loops''.
93	** ''Sound-Dust'' had more of a ChamberPop sound than prior efforts.
94	** ''Margerine Eclipse'' is the band's first album after the death of Mary Hansen, which is apparent in the noticeable absence of her harmony and counter-melody backing vocals which had been a signature element of the band's sound for most her time with the band.
95	* NonAppearingTitle: The vast majority of their songs.
96	* TheNotRemix: The 2019 reissued albums were all remastered by Bo Kondren, with Tim Gane's assistance. Both of them aimed for a mastering style that (in Gane's words) "tries to preserve the inner musicality of the audio" while "improv[ing] a little on the resolution, spaciality, and depth." (Although some of them wound up being significant {{Re Cut}}s as well.)
97	* {{Portmantitle}}: "Delugeoisie", combining "deluge" (most likely in reference to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Apres_moi,_le_deluge a phrase attributed to King Louis XV of France]]) with "bourgeoisie".
98	* ReCut:
99	** From the beginning, there were two versions of ''Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night''. The 1999 LP issue on Duophonic Discs featured the full, [[EpicRocking 17 minute]] version of "Blue Milk"--while the CD version edited the track down to 11 minutes, since the full song would have made the album too long to fit on a single CD. For some reason, every subsequent LP reissue also used the CD version of the album. That is, until 2019, when they used the original LP version (with the full length "Blue Milk") as the basis for the remastered rerelease, both on LP and CD. (The extended length makes ''Cobra and Phases Group'' the only album in the remaster series that's split across two [=CDs=].)
100	** Similarly, the original CD version of ''Sound-Dust'' used an edited version of "Gus the Mynah Bird" (lasting 6:11), while the LP version had the full song (which runs for 9:05), with a longer, percussion-focused intro. For the 2019 remaster, both the CD and LP use the unedited version.
101	** On the original release of ''Margerine Eclipse'', they edited out the ambient section in the middle of "Hillbilly Motobike" (shortening the song to 2:53). That cut portion was included as a standalone bonus track, "La Spirale", on the Japanese release. For the 2019 remaster, they used the unedited full version of "Hillbilly Motobike" (with "La Spirale" in its place in the middle), lengthening the song to 4:52.
102	* {{Retraux}}: Their music aims for the audio equivalent of RaygunGothic.
103	** Their album ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' is basically the {{Music/Neu}} sound with variations.
104	* SelfBackingVocalist: On the albums without Mary Hansen, Lætitia Sadier recorded multiple vocal tracks and harmonized with herself.
105	* SelfPlagiarism: "Dear Marge" rather blatantly reuses the disco groove from "Mass Riff", released just one year prior.
106	* SequelEscalation: If you look at their compilation albums. ''Switched On'' had 10 tracks. ''Refried Ectoplasm'' had 13 tracks. ''Aluminum Tunes'' had 25 tracks, and had to be split across two [=CDs=]. ''Oscillons from the Anti-Sun'' had 35 tracks split across three [=CDs=], plus a DVD with 11 music videos. ''Fab Four Suture'' finally reined in the rampant growth, and just had 12 tracks. Then ''Electrically Possessed'' had 25 tracks split across 2 [=CDs=].
107	* ShoutOut:
108	** ''Switched On'' was named in reference to the album ''Music/SwitchedOnBach''.
109	** Several references to the label [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanguard_Records Vanguard Records]]. The groop took their name from the [[https://www.discogs.com/label/570163-Vanguard-Stereolab?sort=year&sort_order=asc Vanguard Stereolab]] album series. The cover of ''The Groop Played Space Age Batchelor Pad Music'' recycled a design that Vanguard Stereolab used for several of their demonstration records, such as [[https://www.discogs.com/Handel-Vienna-State-Opera-Orchestra-Felix-Prohaska-Edmond-Appia-Royal-Fireworks-Music-Water-Music/release/10283108 this release]] of Haydn's ''Royal Fireworks Music'' and ''Water Music'', [[https://www.discogs.com/Dvorak-Vladimir-Golschmann-New-World-Symphony-No5-In-E-Minor/release/4717617 this recording of]] Dvorak's ''New World Symphony'', and [[https://www.discogs.com/No-Artist-Vanguard-Stereolab-Test-Record/release/1533679 this hi-fi test record]]. On the vinyl issue of ''The Groop Played...'' the back cover and side B disc label even feature Vanguard's logo of a knight on horseback.
110	** Similarly, the entire album design for ''Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements'' was lifted from a stereo test record put out by the ''Hi-Fi Sound'' magazine.
111	** The track "International Colouring Contest" from ''Mars Audiac Quintet'' serves as a tribute to the late [[OutsiderMusic outsider artist]] Lucia Pamela.
112	** ''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.
113	** ''Dots and Loops'' was named for two films by Creator/NormanMclaren, ''Dots'' and ''Loops''. The opening song "Brakhage" was named for filmmaker Creator/StanBrakhage.[[note]]Though Tim Gane admits this was mainly because he thought it was a cool word. "Although I am a huge fan of his films, if he had been named Stan Smith I probably wouldn't have used the name."[[/note]] "Rainbo Conversation" was named after the Rainbo, a bar in Chicago where some of the members of Tortoise worked, and which Stereolab visited while they were recording ''Dots and Loops''.
114	** ''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, and the Phases Group, another group of surrealists. From the same album, "Blips, Drips & Strips" and "Op Hop Detonation" are both named in reference to experimental films Tim Gane read about in Amos Vogel's book ''Film as a Subversive Art''. "The Free Design" was an accidental shout-out: the title was just a reference to the song's lyrics, but the groop were aware of [[Music/TheFreeDesign the band of the same name]] and appreciated the coincidence--and also, at the end of the song, the horns interpolate [[Music/{{ABBA}} "Dancing Queen"]].
115	** On ''Sound-Dust'', the skull-castle and ocean waves on the cover art came from Polish designer Andrezej Onegin Dabrowski's poster for the film ''Film/CulDeSac1966''. All the lyrics from "Nothing to Do with Me" contain lines taken from the dark comedy sketch show ''{{Series/Jam}}''.
116	** The artwork of ''Kyberneticka Babicka'' is explicitly a reference to the Music/PinkFloyd album ''Music/TheDarkSideOfTheMoon''.
117	* SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers: "The Noise of Carpet" says that cynicism is just another tool that The Man uses to keep us down.
118	-->I hate to see your broken face,\
119	a lazy life of fatal waste,\
120	of fashionable cynicism,\
121	the poison they want you to drink.\
122	Oh no, man, that's too easy,\
123	oh no, man, that's so easy.
124	* SongStyleShift:
125	** "Jenny Ondioline" is mostly a shoegaze/krautrock fusion--then it goes "out of phase" and turns into noise pop, before turning back into krautrock for the ending.
126	** "Refractions in the Plastic Pulse" starts off as a slow jazz/pop/samba thing; then turns into space rock with strings; then turns into something that sounds like trip-hop; then into a glitchy electronic tune; and finally back into space rock with strings for the ending.
127	** "Contronatura" starts off slow but tense, then fades to an ambient electronic interlude, then ends as a driving krautrock tune.
128	** "Space Moth" starts off slow and sinister, then changes to a faster beat for the verses, and then transitions to an upbeat ending with triumphant saxophones.
129	** "Captain Easychord" starts off bright, trading off between brass arrangements and pedal steel guitar--then the second half turns into moody synthpop.
130	** "Mass Riff" starts off as poppy krautrock, then switches on a dime into a disco groove. Similarly, "Dear Marge" begins as elegiac synth-rock, then turns into a lullaby, then crossfades into a slight variation on the disco portion of "Mass Riff".
131	* SpokenWordInMusic: "Enivrez-Vous" and "OLV 26" both feature prominent spoken word parts in French.
132	* ThemeNaming: Several of their songs are named after early electronic instruments (i.e. Mellotron, Jenny Ondioline, Motoroller Scalatron) or obscure bands (The Free Design, Les Yper Sound).
133	* VocalTagTeam: From '92 to '02, Lætitia Sadier and Mary Hansen's sing-song harmonies were one of the defining features of the Stereolab sound.

Context Music / Stereolab