"Jenny Ondioline"

Stereolab
(Elektra, 1993)

Stereolab's genius isn't so much their cleverness in appropriating ideas from their favorite records -- this one owes a lot to "Für Immer," by the '70s German band Neu! -- as the way they inevitably improve on the originals. To the endless chime and steady propulsion of their pure rhythm (and the louder the song's massive organ drone gets, the purer it sounds), they add Laetitia Sadier's graceful vocal melody and dramatic shifts in tone and texture. The greatest two-chord song ever written -- and it's seven minutes of one, then 10 of the other.

-- Douglas Wolk