Berlin-based duo STEREO TOTAL's profile has been raised of late after the band spent time on the road supporting THE STROKES.
However, "Total Pop" demonstrates that STEREO TOTAL (with a nucleus of Brezel (German) and Francoise (French)) don't require patronage from one of the world's most in demand bands to stand out from the crowd.
"Total Pop" - curated and compiled by long-time no.1 fan Nick Currie (AKA Creation Records artiste MOMUS) - culls 6 tracks from each of STEREO TOTAL's four studio outings on German label Bungalow, "Oh Ah Oh" (1996); "Monokini" (1997); "Juke Box Alarm" (1998) and 1999's "My Melody." However, while these albums may have been released in the run up to the Millennium, they represent a bizarre sonic sweet shop full of treats influenced by an array of styles from the past 40 years.
Mind you, whether you embrace, tolerate or despise this generous 24-track collection will probably depend on your ability to suffer often cutesy, sometimes perverse Europop, usually sung in either French or occasionally German, with a distinct propensity for pastiche.
Admittedly, STEREO TOTAL have done their homework, and while a lot of their songs veer towards parody, they sometimes pull off startling end results. "Partir Du Mourir," for instance, cross-pollinates cheap, cheerful synths from the late 1970s, with strident strummed chords and the kind of abrasive, compressed vocal usually associated with THE FALL.
There's large helpings of good stuff, actually. "Ringo, I Love You" (yeah, THAT Ringo) marries anaemic guitar pop with amateurish production and still sounds a winner; "Moviestar" mixes and matches Serge Gainsbourg, swaying backing vocals and distant peals of pedal steel. Weird and deadpan, sure, but affecting all the same. "Get Down Tonight" is another kettle of piranha again, all histerionic vocals and insistent, 80s-style indie, though possibly this writer's favourite track of all is the deliberately disposable electro-chant of "Holiday Inn", which gets to you like an itch you can't reach.
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Of course, the down side of my earlier sweet shop analogy is that over-indulgence here will probably result in you feeling overbearingly sickly and certainly when STEREO TOTAL are too cheap and nasty, they're icky indeed. "Dilindam", for instance, lapses into nursery rhyme whimsy and is dangerously throwaway, while the likes of "Und Wer Wird Sich Um Mich Kummern?" and "Supercool" are too annoying for words.
Nonetheless - even allowing for this inevitably fluctuating quality control - "Total Pop" is by and large a very worthwhile collection of Euro treasures ranging from pound shop cheap'n'cheesy to items dressed in ermine and jewels.
In the tradition of Plastic Bertrand and Antoine de Caunes, then, "Total Pop" is Eurotrash, but of the very superior variety.
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