What band was referencing the decidedly unhip Burt Bacharach?
Their records have been heavily influenced by the "motorik" technique of 1970s krautrock groups such as Neu! and Faust. Tim Gane has supported the comparison: "Neu! did minimalism and drones, but in a very pop way." Dave Heaton of PopMatters said that their music also had "echoes of bubblegum, of exotica, of Beach Boys and bossa nova", with their earlier work "bearing strong Velvet Underground overtones". Funk, jazz, and Brazilian music were additional inspirations for the band. Stephan Davet of French newspaper Le Monde said that Emperor Tomato Ketchup (1996) had musical influences such as Burt Bacharach, and Françoise Hardy. The sounds influenced by minimalist composers Philip Glass and Steve Reich can be found on the 1999 album Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night. The same album, according to Rick Reger of Chicago Tribune, "charts [a course] somewhere between the Beach Boys and Kraftwerk." Stereolab's style also incorporates easy-listening music of the 1950s and '60s. Barney Hoskyns wrote in a review for Dots and Loops (1997) that the group moved "away from the one-chord Velvets drone-mesh of its early days" toward easy-listening and Europop. Joshua Klein in Washington Post said that, "Years before everyone else caught on, Stereolab [were] referencing the 1970s German bands Can and Neu!, the Mexican lounge music master Esquivel and the decidedly unhip Burt Bacharach." Regarding their later work such as Instant 0 in the Universe (2003) and Margerine Eclipse (2004), critics have compared the releases to the band's earlier guitar-driven style.
Stereolab