YMMV / Stereolab

• Awesome Music: "Metronomic Underground","Cybele's Reverie" and "Wow and Flutter", to name a few.
• Better on DVD:
  • The three Switched On compilations serve as a good way for the fans to obtain their singles and EPs - many of which have become vast collectables - released throughout the 90's, rather than searching for them individually.
  • Similarly, the compilation Fab Four Suture is unique in that, even though Stereolab initially released all those songs as 7" singles, they were planning all along to compile the songs into an album, and wrote accordingly. Some tracks worked a lot better in the context of an album than they did as standalone singles—particularly the instrumental "Kyberneticka Babicka" Part 1 and Part 2, which wound up as the album Book Ends.
• Common Knowledge: Tim Gane clears up a common misconception about the song "Metronomic Underground" in the Emperor Tomato Ketchup 2019 reissue:
  Tim Gane: ...This track was often cited as the main example of the "new sound" of the band that had resulted from working in Chicago with John McEntire. It was, of course, recorded and mixed in London at Blackwing Studios with Paul Tipler a month before we arrived in Chicago.
• Critical Dissonance: Cobra and Phases Group is often viewed as one of the groop's weakest works according to critics, primarily due to its lengthy tracklisting and unevolved sound compared to their past albums, but fans often consider it to be one of Stereolab's finest works, on par with Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots And Loops.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: They were critical darlings in the 90s, but Cobra and Phases Group alienated the critics and none of their followup albums could win them back. The critics' biggest complaint was that the group had stopped evolving and that all the albums sounded alike.
• Tear Jerker: Margarine Eclipse, the first Stereolab album recorded after backing singer Mary Hansen's passing in 2002, is notably more sombre in tone than their previous outings.
• Vindicated by History: When Cobra and Phases Group first came out, it was hit with criticism from critics, but nowadays it's often viewed as a solid album. In fact, in some cases you can actually see the critics changing their mind on the album:
  • Sometime after July 2019, AllMusic completely rewrote their review of the album, bumping its rating from two-and-a-half stars (out of five) up to four.
  • NME utterly slagged on the album, with a review that opens "Well, you have to admit they’re good at what they do. But then so was Hitler." But before the year was over, they warmed up enough to rank it as #42 on their best albums of 1999 list.