Stereolab: Classic or Dud

You *must* understand my universe, Kyle:

* Tor-twah = the suck aside from maybe a minute of "Djed"
* The vast majority of D&L tracks = produced by one John M. of Tor-twah
* live/radio sessions of the McEntire-produced tracks >>>> the D&L versions
* Ergo, foo on D&L

Other universes are different.

This doesn't make any sense! How can you only like a minute when so much of the joy in the piece is in its progress and transitions?

This is the key point ... even after I stopped enjoying Stereolab records, I continued to enjoy hearing them live because they always brought the krautfunkboogie, whereas on record McEntire et al were obsessed with all the cooing and burbling.

Exactly, as per my comment upthread from yesterday about how they were getting too "cute" on ETK. The rawness that remained on ETK was almost completely smoothed out by D&L.

'joy'

Also, Ned, does this mean you prefer the Andi Toma tracks on Dots and Loops?

Oh heck yes. Keep in mind I am a bit of a Mouse on Mars fiend.

I stopped loving them with Transient... (btw: anyone want to make me an offer for the mint gold vinyl (I think) LP, signed?). The soul dropped out of their music. They were so perfect for the first three or four years. Why did they have to fuck with the amazing simplicity of their sound? Sob.

oh and Dots And Loops I've definitely come around too, you never know when your mind might change.

they DID choose it!

(personally, I really enjoy that record -- despite the myriad of truths in that review)

Anyway--Stereolab: Classic.

These records are all classics:
Peng!
TRNBWA
ETK
D&L
Sound-Dust

Plus all their singles comps are great, and they are a terrific live band.

Cobra and Phases could almost be a classic as well, but it needs to be about 4 or 5 songs shorter, and the production needs to be improved in some places.

The more recent stuff, Margerine and Fab Four Suture, are a bit weaker for me. I miss the presence of Mary and I think the production is way too busy. However, the tracks on these two came across really well in a live setting.

stereolab's music takes me to a future place that we shall never know, a clean beautiful one.

Plastic Mile is the best song of all time.

They're pretty classic. Cobra and Phases was the first album I picked up by them, almost 10 years ago back in high school, and I really loved it. Picked up Dots and Loops shortly after, but it didn't really stick, and after that I don't think I listened to anything by Stereolab for about 8 years.

Then just recently, I found used copies of Transient and Emperor Tomato, and these are great, especially ETK. Hearing these motivated me to finally throw on Dots and Loops the other day, after giving up on it for so long, and it sounded pretty awesome.

Dots and Loops is a grower, and a masterful piece of work.

Pick up Margerine Eclipse, everyone seems to like that. A nice combination of pretty much every style the groop has explored.

I really, really love "Fab Four Suture."

"Plastic Mile" is indeed amazing but "Whisper Pitch" and "Excursions Into Oh, A-Oh" are actually the best songs of all time.

Dots and Loops sounds amazing to me now -- we didn't know how good we had it back when this thread started.

Proof that Dots and Loops is a god: 'The Flower Called Nowhere,' 'Miss Modular,' 'Refractions in the Plastic Pulse.' The other tracks are merely perfect. I desperately want a remaster of this, due to the horrible tape dropouts toward the end.

Fab Four Suture: 'Whisper Pitch' is the only track I skip. 'Excursions' as a ringtone gets the whole office grooving. And 'Plastic Mile,' um, yeah. If Jeff Lynne were French and female/falsetto and a genius he may well have invented this song.

It would be relevant at this point to mention that Miss Modular got me into Stereolab and Dots & Loops consummated the relationship.

Dots and Loops is indeed godhead. Totally my fave by them, but damn if I don't like every single thing they've done.

You and I are the trust fund kids of ilx.

it's weird to think that the point where i effectively gave up on stereolab is the point where others discovered them

ya totally

'gave up on' isn't terribly accurate but still.. i still remember how much D&L disappointed me at the time

xpost

i listened to cobra and phases for the first time in a long time recently and damn if it's not my least favourite lab album by a long margin

burn it

with the use of fire, not duplicate

PLEASE not duplicate

i've always loved cobra... i think there was more character on that record than some of their other more recent records.

i agree with the sentiment that throwing together some kind of best of/singles compilation would precipitate a masterpiece. they could be nearly life altering for like two tracks and then just pretty good for the rest of a record. it's a shame because they're a wonderful band, but because i think they lack that "HOLY SHIT!" record, you can feel the obscurity as only a matter of time. (probably true of 99.9% of all groups. just about everybody trends to dud.)

m.

Cobra would have been a much better album if it were engineered properly. It's all midrange and no bass. That alone kills it for me.

That's not to say that many of the numbers are not really very good and beautiful in their own right.