Per the billing in its subtitle, Serene Velocity is an anthology of Stereolab's 11 years on Elektra Records: a career retrospective, primer, beginner's guide, portable collection, or any of the other names we give greatest hits albums from bands who can't claim to have actual conventional hits. Not the most exciting concept in the world, but it's certainly a useful one. This is a band we talk about a lot-- in passing references and comparisons, as critics' shorthand, as a touchstone. And yet a curious newcomer who tracks down their bin at the store may well find 10 full-length albums, four collections of EPs and singles, and plenty of sundries besides: Fifteen years (and counting) of fairly varied work, with a partisan somewhere to claim any given era is the best one. For the curious newcomer, it's daunting.
And of course with every year that passes since the starting point of rock, there are more and more perfectly brilliant, worthy bands we just couldn't possibly find the time to listen to in any comprehensive way, which is precisely why things like this exist-- so that, assuming this package doesn't get one-upped, someone ten or fifteen years from now can ask the question: "Do I need to buy all those Stereolab albums, or is Serene Velocity pretty much going to get the point across?"
Which makes it a bit harder to judge this package in the present. It's certainly a sensible approach: 18 chronological tracks (released between 1993-2004), with a title that references both an avant-garde film and the odd duality that marked the band's early work-- speedy organ buzz meets sedate, elegant swing. Stereolab is a touchstone, and this is a collection of touchstone tracks: It even starts with the 7" edit of "Jenny Ondioline", the 18-minute slice of droning, Germanic pop that first made them seem genuinely important. (In 1993! When even Sonic Youth were flirting with the conventional alt-rock gold rush! When-- trust me-- even music geeks didn’t necessarily talk much about Neu!) There's "French Disko", the band's signature organ-rush pop single; "Ping Pong", the minor hit that announced their turn toward moon-landing dreams and mini-skirt swing; three tracks from Emperor Tomato Ketchup, still their best record; two from the skittery digital world of Dots and Loops; and six check-ins from records hence, on which the band didn't seem to be doing anything wrong, and yet started to feel the slightest bit mannered, routine, and lifeless.
Not much you can argue with, touchstone-wise. And it's all still terrific listening, thanks mostly to that whole odd-duality thing. The beauty of this band, through the 90s, was the way that their "experiments" were always experiments in pop: Even when their obscure influences now seem fairly common, and even when their stylistic oddities have been copped by enough other acts to make them seem standard, the songs themselves still come off fine-tuned and lovely, passionate and convincing, each one individual. The liner notes here are right to point to Stereolab's fixation on retro-futurism-- the way "futuristic" visions from the 50s and 60s now seem so quaint and idyllic, like the past and the future at the same time-- and to hope that Stereolab's sound will age just as well. Gone is the feeling of importance and progress that used to attach to this act. But give it a decade or two, and that'll leave their records feeling exactly like the dreamy period oddities they themselves admired. Future discoveries of the strange psychedelic pop on Emperor Tomato Ketchup may feel a bit like today's discoveries of the strange psychedelic pop on an old Free Design album; future discoveries of the sedate swing on Dots and Loops might feel like today's purchase of an old Françoise Hardy LP.
The only funny part is the vaguely defensive tone of those liner notes, which go out of their way to point out that Stereolab "are very much an active band today," and to let guitar player Tim Gane express surprise that people ask him whether it's time for a change; it feels almost like an apology to the band for releasing yet another back-looking collection, another sign that things are wrapping up. But if this were to go down as the definitive Stereolab summary, Gane and company could certainly be proud: The first two-thirds of this record contains some of the best music of the 1990s, flat-out. And of course every greatest hits album needs to trail off a bit at the end, if only so you know which albums not to be as interested in. The main sense in which I can imagine anyone one-upping this as the go-to summary is just by giving you...more.
