For what it's worth, I'm inspired by the serious academic criticism recently gracing the pages of Pitchfork. I'm wondering, should I justify the half-a-masters degree I earned, and actually take a risk? Sure. Why not make some inroads on garnering the Robert Christgau Award for Excellence in Semi-Readable Music Journalism with this possibly unbearable (but undoubtedly groundbreaking) work of musical scholarship. Certainly, the Stereo may be one of the most obscure low-brow pop bands in the world, and their hyper-simplistic new EP, New Tokyo is Calling is the perfect subject for my inaugural attempt at furrowed-brow rock criticism.

The group's name, the Stereo, is universal, ubiquitous, but unobtrusive; much like other ubiquitous-but-unobtrusive familiar household objects-as-bandnames such as Television, the Doors, the Shoes, Sneakers, the Box Tops, the Toasters, Raydio, the Urinals, and the little-known ska outfit the Bookshelves. Are the Stereo selling themselves as a weird sort of "band functioning as actual mechanical sound filtration device?" Or is the moniker the Stereo simply an effective universal "metaphor as marketing tool," offering the technologically primitive consumer an easily recognizable historical reference to a simpler age when one had merely a "stereo"-- no complex DVDs, CDs and DATs? The Stereo want to be associated with an uncomplicated era and its uncomplicated music.

See, the Stereo want their music to seep into your daily life and become as much a part of your unconscious routine as switching on a household appliance, or reflexively turning on... the stereo. How will they effectively enter your body and become one with your bio-rhythms and circulate through your veins? First of all, they put into practice Aristotle's theory of art as mimesis (i.e., art as the imitation of life), or in this case, art as the imitation of the Plimsouls, Asia, Loverboy, and Survivor.

New Tokyo is Calling may be a subtle reference to the Japanese/Asian fashion craze pervading youth culture in the 1980's: rising-sun Kamikaze pilot headbands, songs about "China girls" and young men "turning Japanese" from constant masturbation. It's the Stereo's way of saying, in layman's terms, "the eighties are back, and we're cashing in!" Also, clever recasting of archetypal Everyman metaphors occurs often in these songs, as in, "I'm thinking of ways to stack my cards so they won't fall." "You Were the One" even has a chorus that smartly references Lionel Richie 1983 smash "You Are" to ensure utmost '80s credibility and salability (as well as permanent subconscious presence).

"Turn the Amp On" may also strike a positive consumer-related chord in the collective unconscious of the jilted male, by cagily employing historically effective pop song motifs and familiar boy-loses-girl scenarios to comfort the sex-deprived male listener: in the song, the desperate boy pleads with his girl on the phone and everything he says is "wrong." His relationship dies on the line, yet hope prevails-- he still has access to that all-important female-surrogate and coitus substitute: the guitar (an instrument both penile and feminine, a hermaphroditic fantasy-object for the average male) and amplifier. The male sexual frustration caused by the recalcitrant closed-legged female is sublimated through the playing of loud neighbor-angering power chords-- a palliating quasi-sexual experience common in the lives of many a male homo erectus. Thus, another example of the sly marketing genius of the Stereo.

In keeping with its guileless namesake, the Stereo boast the obvious sonic formulas of a band craving temporal chart success in the face of future ignominy, or at best, future obscurity. (Note the Mother-Goose rhymes, monolithic barre chords, unchanging distorted guitar tone.) And the guitar solos are so subliminal and brilliantly minimal that you soon realize, "Zounds! There aren't any!" In its place is all that verse-chorus-verse traditionalism, a singer with radio-ready voice that evokes Little River Band nicety, and a lot of prefigured universal sentiments included to alienate nary a soul in the mainstream record-buying public.

The Stereo possesses a substantial Kierkegaardian faith in the absurd, which is absolutely necessary in the case of bands with sub-modest talent. They seem assured that their ridiculous efforts on New Tokyo is Calling will lead to a one- or two-year rollercoaster ride on the fast track to fleeting rock stardom-- much like their ephemeral '80s heroes. My final assessment? In the words of the great pessimist Nietzsche, "excellence is rare." And, mind you, the Stereo is not excellent. But as Nietzsche often said concerning Wagner's body of work, "Ja, it isn't great, but it doesn't totally suck, either."

-Michael Sandlin