Raising McCain

Stereolab have appeared in many places during their 18-year life
span—including on the now-defunct major
label Elektra
Records and on the Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy soundtrack, for
instance—but perhaps none so strange as on McCainBlogette.com, the blog of Meghan
McCain. The Republican presidential candidate’s daughter has been
assiduously documenting her dad’s campaign online via photographs and
commentary.

Accompanying each day’s barrage of Repug political shenanigans is a
song that happens to be rocking young McCain’s world. Recent picks
include “Baba O’Riley” by the Who, “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by the
Verve, “So What” by Pink, and Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild.” Most of
these tunes McCain chooses display a rebellious, individualistic streak
and could hardly be construed as paragons of conservative “family
values.” Good luck trying to find such songs that will excite a young
person—even if she happens to be the offspring of a prominent
Republican politician.

On September 29, a few days after the first McCain-Obama debate,
that tune was Stereolab’s “Ping Pong,” from the European band’s 1994
album Mars Audiac Quintet.

“Ping Pong” is an odd choice. First, because Stereolab—led by
guitarist/keyboardist Tim Gane and vocalist/keyboardist Laetitia
Sadier—possess well-documented interests in Marxism,
situationism, and surrealism. (Gane’s pre-
Stereolab group,
McCarthy, were also notoriously leftist.) Second, because “Ping Pong”
is a sardonic critique of capitalism’s cruel boom/bust cycles. This is
the song Meghan McCain was listening to over and over again as the
American economy was in free fall:

It’s alright ‘cos the historical pattern has shown

How the economical cycle tends to revolve

In a round of decades three stages stand out in a loop

A slump and war then peel back to square one and back for more

Bigger slump and bigger wars and a smaller recovery

Huger slump and greater wars and a shallower recovery

You see the recovery always comes ’round again

There’s nothing to worry for things will look after themselves

It’s alright recovery always comes ’round again

There’s nothing to worry if things can only get better

There’s only millions that lose their jobs and homes and sometimes
accents

There’s only millions that die in their bloody wars, it’s
alright

That’s a hell of a “song of the day,” just as John McCain is trying
to dig himself out of a hole for saying that “the fundamentals of the
economy are strong.” It almost seems as if Meghan McCain were slyly
trying to subvert her pop’s campaign by spotlighting such an
anticapitalist ditty.

Meghan McCain did not respond to requests for comment. Similarly,
repeated efforts to interview Stereolab’s musical mastermind Gane
failed. With no input from them regarding the ironic intrusion of “Ping
Pong” on the McCain daughter’s website, let’s consider how Stereolab’s
new album, Chemical Chords (4AD/Duophonic UHF Disks), compares
to John McCain’s run for the presidency.

Chemical Chords is a subtle variation on what Stereolab have
done in the past. After 18 years of prolific production, they aren’t
breaking any significant new ground; very few groups—or
politicians—do so this far into their careers, even “mavericky”
artists like Gane and Sadier. Stereolab recorded Chemical Chords very quickly, using an unconventional songwriting process in which
beats and melodies came together almost haphazardly. The McCain camp
has used a seemingly similar slapdash approach, to much less harmonious
results.

The compositional method for Chemical Chords was certainly
different, but the outcome doesn’t deviate radically from the bulk of
Stereolab’s back catalog. They could do a polka album and most people
would be able to instantly recognize Gane and Sadier’s sonic
fingerprints.

Chemical Chords is at once one of Stereolab’s oddest and most
accessible albums. The songs are generally shorter than typical (14
tracks in 48 minutes is concise for Stereolab) and melodically bright,
tinctured by bubbly harpsichord, glockenspiel, strings, and horns. Gone
are the brooding, meandering cuts that dotted Dots and Loops and
Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements (the latter
title could be Team McCain’s slogan).

But while a light, cheerful mood permeates Chemical Chords (strange, given the gloomy economic and political climate), the rhythms
seem strangely detached from the melodies, creating a pleasing
friction; it’s as if two usually incompatible elements—liberal
and conservative, say—are commingling, but not clashing. The
album is stitched together from disparate parts, but it
coheres—unlike the floundering McCain ticket, which should be
scored by The Odd Couple theme played on untuned tubas.

Somehow, it’s as hard to imagine Meghan McCain making anything on
Chemical Chords her song of the day as it is to conceive
Stereolab (if they were American) voting for her father.