Stereolab's Chemical Chords

(August 9, 2020)

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Next up in the pile is an album that, oddly, I didn't ask for and don't remember getting. There's three in my collection of that type: Beck's Modern Guilt, which ended up being my breakthrough into the man's back catalog past "Loser" and "E-Pro", The Raconteurs' Consolers of the Lonely, my preferred album from the Jack White side-project where Jack White is the weakest member (or is that The Dead Weather? I forget...), and Stereolab's Chemical Chords. This last one is today's Rediscovering entry and also probably the one that's not staying in the collection.

Chin up. There'll be better ones further down in the pile, I think.

My previous experience, if any

Expanding on what I said, I think this one was a gift from my older sister back when I was in middle school, and I proceeded to completely forget about it for a couple years. While I've occasionally heard Stereolab's name around, they've never been a group I've been altogether interested in digging into. Nevertheless, not one to let a disc in my possession go unheard, I loaded it into the player like normal and sat.

The history lesson

Stereolab are what I can only describe as "avant-indie bullshitters". Think "what 90s people thought 60s people thought elevator music would sound like in the future", and you have roughly what I think their sound is. 18 years into their career, they'd already achieved recognition for such classics as...Mars Audiac Quintet and Emperor Tomato Ketchup (yeah no worries, I just went "what the fuck" too), and having lost one of their primary members to a bus crash four years prior, I'm guessing they went back to basics. According to contemporary reviews, Chemical Chords is a tighter, shorter, poppier affair, influenced by Motown, driven by horns, and simpler and less overwrought than what the group had done in the past.

Well?

...And you can't fool me with comments like that, given that this album has precisely two actual hooks, the slightest hint of Motown on one track, and sounds like the soundtrack to The Jetsons committing group suicide over holographic livestream on the whole. I'll give Stereolab this much; there's probably not a lot that sounds like this. There are a lot of horns, and it's definitely simple. Too simple. The group will hit on a pretty good groove and then go nowhere with it. This is definitely true with "Three Women", which I could see being groovy and slick if it developed into anything actually groovy and slick. What melodies are there are pleasant and forgettable. Is this how people feel listening to my music?

Sometimes, the album's uniformity isn't just a wash, it's an active detriment. The title track starts and stops in this way to tease you into thinking it's over while you actively hope it's over. On my second listen, at about the fourth false stop, I went "fucking finish already" out loud at my stereo without even thinking. It's maddening. The repetitive bounciness melts your mind in this "I'm actually going insane listening to this" manner, and it's deeply unpleasant. It's actually really difficult picking out example songs and things to talk about because it all ended up blurring together, even though I only listened to it two hours ago.

What makes matters worse are the vocals. Let me tell you, I am a sucker for female vocalists, but they have to be interesting female vocalists. For someone like Kim Deal, the cracks and pained wails on a song like "Iris" are what make that track, and while others I like, like Nikki Monninger or Chrissie Hynde, don't have much in the way of range, they have a certain style, a certain way of coming off, that work well with the music. Lætitia Sadier's vocals here don't come off as anything. They're just awash in the rest of the overly-pleasant bachelor pad instrumentation, and sometimes it doesn't even sound like she's forming actual words. I know she's French and I know sometimes she literally doesn't form words, but that's no excuse.

The one single example of a song I genuinely like from this mountain of madness is "Silver Sands", which I remember tugging at my shirt when I tried it back then, and it's still doing that. Relative to this album anyway, I still think it's a rather weak track, but there's an actual hint of a lead melody in there and the tone goes from elevator music to department store music–a welcome change! Again though, Sadier's vocals are just so forgettable, so background, and her lyrics say absolutely nothing that jumps out at you that I kinda just replace that "intricate delicate" refrain with dumb shit like "impotent Mexican" and "duplicate triplicate" just to get some entertainment out of the experience.

Stereolab is one of those bands who you hear about occasionally as you read a lot of music journalism, ostensibly because they're "important". I don't buy it. There's bands that don't do a whole lot new but you like anyway, and there's a lot of those in my collection. Bush is a prime example. I understand there's a world of music snobs who will read that previous sentence and conclude I must have absolutely no idea what the hell I'm on about, but genuinely, what's the issue with them? A "lack of substance"? A frontman who happens to be conventionally attractive? They write catchy songs with loud guitars and strangled vocals. Yeah, it's a bit like Nirvana, if you happen to think Nirvana started that. You can do a lot worse.

But then there's bands that do a whole lot that is new...that you can't fucking stand. Stereolab is firmly in the latter category. This is what happens when a band tries to have nothing but "substance". This grates on your nerves. As pop music, it sounds half-cooked. As happy music, this sounds more like active psychosis. The only thing I wanted on the first listen was the occasional B section or slow song; the only thing I wanted on the second listen was to turn it off.

Are you keeping it?

Absolutely not.

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