The Stereolab Conundrum

 

Jimi Hendrix had a problem. He’d broken through with his 1967 Monterey Pop performance, where he closed his set with a raw, confronting version of The Troggs’ proto-punk track Wild Thing and, as the song came to an end, he smashed his Fender Strat against the stage, set it on fire and then threw the pieces into the crowd as his rhythm section, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, kept up a syncopated backbeat. 

 

The performance was a statement of intent, and Hendrix’ fame only grew over the next few years before his untimely death on 18 September 1970. The problem Hendrix had is that he wanted to grow as an artist and musician, but the audience wasn’t having a bar of it. They wanted more of the same: Purple Haze, Hendrix playing his instrument behind his back and with his teeth and, yeah, the guitar smashing. What most of the audience didn’t want were extended jazz-blues fusion jams or collabs with Miles Davis.

 

And so Hendrix was trapped, but then he died and so never had to fully address what I’ve dubbed The Stereolab Conundrum – that is, when you have a sound, decide as an artist that you’ve outgrown the possibilities of that sound and want to head in new directions, but end up changing so drastically you lose your old audience while struggling to gain a new one.

 

Why Stereolab?

 

Sure, there are a million bands that have faced this conundrum. Some have prospered and found new audiences; others have disappeared into the pop-culture memory hole. And yeah, there are bands that have never had this problem, and we’ll get to them in a sec. But Stereolab are most notable because there’s Stereolab before the shift in tone and sound, and then there’s Stereolab after the fact, with little crossover between audiences for the two eras and sounds.

 

Stereolab’s first era was marked by droning Moogs and Farfisas, motorik beats, jagged guitar lines and female vocal harmonies to die for. It was a heady mix and while, yes, you could play ‘spot the influence’ – “oh, there’s the Faust bit.” “Ahh, a Neu! reference,” and so on - their sound was unique and built on its influences to create something truly new.

 

This all came to an end with their fourth album, 1996’s Emperor Tomato Ketchup. While there were motorik elements, their sound had changed. The group – or groop, as fans call them – became fascinated with jazzy, easy listening sounds that reached into Bossanova and Tropicalo vibes. And it’s this path the ‘Lab followed for the ensuing six albums before they finally called it a day in April 2009.

 

The problem was their new sound, in my opinion, sucked. All the droney goodness, the delightful harmonies and scratchy guitar was gone in favour of …. easy listening. And talking of listening, that’s exactly what I stopped doing with Stereolab. I’d break out the early stuff, but the new music held no interest.

This is The Stereolab Conundrum: how do you evolve as an artist while taking your audience with you? Would Hendrix have succeeded? We’ll never know. But in my book, The Groop failed.

 

Evolution: either pointless or expected

 

At what point does an artist evolve so much that they’re not the same creator they once were? For some artists, evolution isn’t an option. The Ramones and Motorhead come to mind. Neither of those bands were going to change their sound; they knew what their audiences wanted from them, and they delivered.

 

And, of course, there’s the mack-daddy example of them all – AC/DC. 

 

There are also bands and musicians whose audiences expect evolution. The listeners anticipate how the band will change from record to record, and the way those changes manifest live.

 

Australia’s Liars, as well as local heroes King Gizz, are two artists who do this. Each album is different, while still retaining an essential “Liars-ness” or “King Gizzidity” regardless of the genre they choose to explore with each recording.

 

Liars can evolve and still be Liars, but AC/DC and the conundrum’s namesake, Stereolab, couldn’t and can’t.

 

For some artists, their sound becomes quicksand from which they struggle to extract themselves. These are the artists who fall victim to The Stereolab Conundrum. Others? They embrace their sound and make hay. I’m sure Angus Young has absolutely no regrets about writing what’s essentially the same song for the last 50 years. Others still? They’re chameleons, and their audience demands the shapeshifting. 

 

But the warning is clear: for most bands and artists, you change your sound and demand new things from your audience at your peril. Try to do it, and there’s a good chance you’ll end up in the memory hole.

 

As for Hendrix, had he lived, I’m guessing he would’ve done exactly what he wanted, without giving a fuck about the audience and what they demanded. As Jimi himself said: “not necessarily stoned, but beautiful….”