Mars Audiac Quintet Expanded edition

Stereolab’s second major American release, following Transient Random Noise-Bursts With Announcements, saw the band focusing more on its space-age pop sound, tightening up its songwriting and sharpening its approach. This refocusing resulted in a product that blends sweet synth melodies, lush pop vocals, and socio-political lyrics in such a textured manner that not even MTV realized that by playing “Ping Pong” in widespread rotation, it was spreading the band’s pro-Marxian philosophy. To be fair though, the band’s political stance was discreetly weaved into deceptively simple hypnotic drones and synthesized tones (and often French lyrics) that make up much of Stereolab’s soundscape.