Nearly an hour into a 2015 Red Bull Academy interview, singer Laetitia Sadier discusses the lyrics for the beloved Stereolab song “Ping Pong.” It is, she explained, about the “cycle of destruction” within capitalist societies.
“Repair, rebuild and then another crisis,” she says, before adding that the cycle could no longer be called a crisis. “Now, we’re just stuck,” she adds.
I watched this video recently and began to think about the strangeness of “Ping Pong,” from Stereolab’s 1994 album, Mars Audiac Quintet. The meaning wasn’t exactly hidden in the lyrics; with lines like “bigger slump and bigger wars/and a smaller recovery/huger slump and greater wars/and a shallower recovery,” you could say that the message was blatant. In its day, “Ping Pong” was one of the band’s best known cuts. Certainly, it was the first Stereolab song I heard. For much of the late ’90s and into the ’00s, you could hear it on college radio, inside indie clubs or filtering through the record stores and coffee shops. It’s a commentary on the world at the end of the 20th century, but, in retrospect, it also sounds like a warning of what’s to come.
Listening to Stereolab now – in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it seems like every fault of our modern, tech-centric, capitalist society is on full view – is a revelation. Even for those of us who are longtime fans, the music might hit differently. It’s not just that the passage of time has shown how vast their influence has been across genres (Madlib sampled Stereolab; Iron and Wine and The Editors have both covered them). It’s that the themes peppering a good chunk of their lyrics are more tangible now.
To an extent, Stereolab, who reconvened in 2019 after a decade-long hiatus and recently released the rarities collections, Electrically Possessed [Switched On Volume 4], had a rep as a political band. A 1996 article in The Wire described Sadier’s lyrics as reading “like a Situationist/Marxist pamphlet” and they had a lineage that extended back to the vocally left U.K. indie pop of the 1980s: Tim Gane was an original member of the band McCarthy, which Sadier later joined; they formed Stereolab after the group split. But the message in a lot of their songs was often overshadowed by the sound, an eclectic mix of styles coming together in a unique way that would set the stage for a slew of bands to follow, from Broadcast to Ladytron to Animal Collective.
“Retrofuturism” has been a word used to describe Stereolab often, but, now, it’s clear how inaccurate that description has been. The implication was that Stereolab was mining a vision of the future imagined in the middle of the 20th century. While there are certainly echoes of that era’s music and design throughout their work, Stereolab was also offering a critique of the political and economic systems that would drive the illusions of progress in the middle decades of the 1900s and lead to growing hardships as the century neared its end.
During the band’s heyday – their initial run was from 1990 to 2009 – it was easy to highlight the band’s links to the past. For fans just starting their music nerd journey, Stereolab was a gateway to learning about German groups like Can and Neu!, French singer Brigitte Fontaine and a host of genres considered vintage by the dawn of the 1990s. Listening to them now, though, what stands out is the prophecy in Stereolab’s songs.
They might not have set out to make predictions, but Sadier, the band’s chief singer and lyricist, is incredibly skilled at breaking down how systems work in engaging ways. Because the Stereolab songs viewed as being their most political are more about structures than people or events, they’ve transcended the moments in which they were made and have become more relevant as the flaws in our systems become harder to ignore. These were the issues that were part of the discourse going on at college campuses, in zines and amongst DIY art and music-makers of the time, but were often ignored by the mainstream. Today, they’re trending topics on Twitter.
Take, for example, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, released 25 years ago on March 18. Listening to “Tomorrow Is Already Here” (“Originally, this set up was to serve society/Now, the roles have been reversed that want society to serve the institutions”) in early 2021 is a reminder of how and why a select few have made billions when so many have suffered as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In “OLV 26,” in which Sadier uses both French and English, I hang onto the line “unchallenged myths, they lie heavy” and think about how so many of today’s biggest issues are the result of systemic problems (racism, colonialism, sexism and classism, just to start the list) that have remained largely unchecked for generations, and will stay in place so long as people continue to perpetuate myths of exceptionalism. Meanwhile, “Motoroller Scalatron” asks “What’s society built on?” Maybe that’s a question that’s been on a lot of our minds at a time when our society can feel like it’s on the brink of collapse.
The one Stereolab song I’ve leaned on a lot during the past year is “French Disko,” a fan favorite that began its life as a bonus track for the 1993 single “Jenny Ondioline,” then appeared on 1995 comp Refried Ectoplasm [Switched On Volume 2]. The song is a call to action with the refrain of “La resistance!” that acknowledges the absurdity of the world. In spite of that absurdity, Sadier sings, “Well I say there are still things worth fighting for.”
Ultimately, you need to believe that there’s a way to a better future if you’re going to spend time calling out what clearly isn’t working. When I listen to Stereolab now, I hear answers for the questions that this pandemic life is raising, but, more importantly, I hear hope.
