A Saucy Bunch: The Apples in Stereo

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THE APPLES IN STEREO still have some time left to shape their legacy, but history is smiling favorably upon them already.

Breaking new ground in indie music as part of the Athens, Ga.-based Elephant 6 Collective, Apples frontman Robert Schneider (the lone founding member of the 17-year-old band who's still in the group) will be remembered as the goofy bald guy who composed an ode to Stephen Colbert, performed with a truckload of bands, put out his own children's album and unceasingly wrote earnest songs about love and life.

Schneider is a peculiar persona: a meticulous, academic-minded songwriter (he reportedly irked his manager by sneaking off to teach math classes instead of working on a new album), something like a bizarro Rivers Cuomo. But while his penchant for analytic number theory occasionally shows up in his songs thematically, there's no left-vs.-right-brain struggle to be found. The Apples' pop songs don't invoke descriptions of structure or rigidity in the slightest — rather, Schneider approaches songwriting just like any other artist, exploring colors and textures in a visceral way that's much more like fractals than calculus.

It's hard to talk about the Apples in Stereo without referencing the Beach Boys (for nostalgia reasons), Electric Light Orchestra (for fantastical, multi-layered shimmer-rock reasons) and the rest of the famed Elephant 6 Collective (for revolutionizing-the-indie-scene reasons). But the Apples stand alone in pop rock, not only for their attitude, but for the sheer, unadulterated joy that comes across in whatever they do. Varying from glazed-over space rock to insanely peppy electronica and everything in between, the Apples' repertoire features far more ups than downs. Any best-of collection would include four or five must-haves, everything else being pretty much a wash -- the only possible bad inclusions would be something like the indulgent, aimless thematic tracks on "Her Wallpaper Reverie."

But of course Yep Roc knows better than that, and "#1 Hits Explosion" gets it exactly right: If you buy only one Apples in Stereo album in your life, this should be it. The Apples aren't the kind of band that hates its popular songs and refuses to perform them live — one of the benefits of never having top-40 hits, at least, is that you don't get sick of them. In fact, the title "#1 Hits Explosion" is as ironically self-aggrandizing as the song "The Apples in Stereo Theme Song," which proclaims, "We are the Apples in Stereo / You hear our records on the radio."

You'll hear the band on Cartoon Network, sure, but probably not the radio. Nonetheless, the Apples have the cred to make this kind of ploy awesome instead of just sad and bitter. Their attitude seems to be, if these songs aren't #1 hits, well, that's Billboard's problem, not the Apples'.

"#1 Hits" is perfectly mixed, kicking off with the advertisement-ready crowd-pleaser "Energy." "Go" is about as kid-friendly circus-pop as you can get without crossing into "Yo Gabba Gabba" territory (although Schneider has already crossed that line with his own kids' project, Robbert Bobbert). "Same Old Drag," the natural counterpart to "Energy," is one of the band's best songs — and seriously, watch the video. Why don't all bands seem to enjoy their own songs this much? If a band's members aren't air-jamming in a van to their own tunes, maybe they should reassess their chosen career path.

Whether it's doing their best Beatles impression with "Strawberryfire," channeling the Velvet Underground with "Tidal Wave" or "Seems So," or delving into the social turmoil of kindergarten superheroes with "Signal in the Sky" (as featured on "The Powerpuff Girls"), the Apples kick ass with plenty of "oh-la-las" to spare. "#1 Hits" is what it is — it culls every wisp of rambling experimentation in which the Apples occasionally dabble (which is cool, but it has no place on a best-of album), and it gets right down to the business making everyone happy.

"Please"

"Can You Feel It?"

"Energy"

Written by Express contributor Afton Lorraine Woodward
Photos courtesy Joshua Kessler