Review Summary: "We ended up becoming what we first tried to erase"
After the poor reception of their previous album Dynamo (mainly due to the experimental nature of the album and problems within the record companies). Soda tried their 2 extreme points of the career; make a fusion of the radio friendly songs that made them popular in the region and mix it with the experimentalism they brought in their previous album.
Main leader Gustavo Cerati started a few years before his solo career by releasing his debut album "Amor Amarillo". He brought all his music ideas that he couldn't use or share when he was in the band and turned to be one of his most acclaimed albums in his career.
The band which at that point were almost broken due to tensions between the band members inspired them to make a final effort of making one more album after breaking up for good and it became a successful album and the tour was even more lucrative than the previous one.
During the 90's Argentinian music suffer from a big dilemma: how to become successful without failing in the popular scene; taking into account the popularity and rising of alternative rock movement in the U.S. and Europe, but Soda went the other way round: they actually tried to make a pseudo progressive rock and it was a big surprise for the fans considering that the style was not actually their main trojan horse, even though Dynamo was not Gustavo first attempt on working in other music genres, he put a collaborative album with musician "Daniel Melero" called "Colores Santos" which on this day it has become something of a cult album.
The promotion of the album was the cleverest move in all his career, they put the 2 extremes of their career, the first single "Ella uso mi cabeza como un revolver" was more of an alternative rock song a-la-R.E.M, while the second single "zoom" had the pop sensibility of their first hit songs such us "Persiana Americana".
One interesting point about Soda career was that beginning with "Cancion Animal" and subsequent albums, Cerati was becoming sympathetic towards using samples in his music, especially in his solo albums. Sueño Stereo became their 2nd (if not the third album) in which many songs on the album used samples such us "Efecto doppler" using the same dumming and melody from an Echo and the Bunnymen track "all my colours". Although the songs were partially sampled to create atmosphere such us "Sweet sauhmerio" in Dynamo. The booklet gives footnotes of all the samples that were used in the songs.
Anyway the rest of album was full of experimentation ranging from the britpop influenced "Paseando por Roma", through the spacey atmosphere of "Efecto doppler".
The main surprise from most of the music critics and fans was the progressive suite at the end of the album with 4 songs that segues into the next one, which it could be the influence of Pink Floyd they had while recording the album. Also a song from this suite became surprisingly popular "Planta", one of the most progressive tracks in the album. Gustavo Kept it playing it on his solo career in the following years after Soda's breakup and remains one of the most popular tracks within the fan community, considering either "their best song on the album" or "Their best song since years".
Outtakes from this album were put on their unplugged album, which they were more or less same experimentation of most songs in the album. I think that if they had to put those songs into the album it would have been considered more of a sequel to "Dynamo" rather than breaking the pattern they were used to made in their last 3 albums.
All in all is a brilliant album, they put everything they learned throught their years and they built a magnificent piece of art.
