The band's breakthrough single was "Ageless Beauty", from their 2004 album Set Yourself on Fire. Millan, Cranley and Campbell are also members of the indie band Broken Social Scene, with whom they currently share a record label, Arts & Crafts. Campbell...The band's breakthrough single was "Ageless Beauty", from their 2004 album Set Yourself on Fire. Millan, Cranley and Campbell are also members of the indie band Broken Social Scene, with whom they currently share a record label, Arts & Crafts. Campbell is also an actor and has appeared on the television shows Sex and the City and Law & Order. Millan released a solo album in 2006. Several of the band's songs, such as "The Vanishing", "Your Ex-Lover Is Dead", and "The Big Fight", have appeared on the Fox Network's The O.C. and CTV's Degrassi: The Next Generation. Their single "Ageless Beauty" was also featured in a promotional trailer for Vh1's So NoTORIous.
On their website, the band has noted that their name was chosen without prior knowledge of the short-lived project by Syd Barrett.[3] They have cited a wide variety of musical likes and influences ranging from Berlioz to Outkast, citing among others Barrett, Paddy McAloon, New Order, The Smiths, Brian Wilson, Momus, and Broken Social Scene. They covered The Smiths' "This Charming Man" on 2001's Nightsongs and The Pogues' "Fairytale of New York" in 2005. Other indie artists have been guest collaborators on many of their tracks, especially for an early period including the release of their first LP.
They recently surprised their fans by releasing their latest studio album (In Our Bedroom After the War), on July 10, 2007, a full two months ahead of its expected release date, onto iTunes. When Stars released In Our Bedroom After the War to online retailers weeks before the CD's actual release date to circumvent the album's inevitable leak, part of their reasoning touched on the increasingly blurry line between critics and listeners. The band believed indie-rock fans should be able to review and provide opinions of the band's albums similar in a way to the so-called critics, but soon realized that the outcome could be very far from their ideal expectation. Soon after the music site Pitchfork Media gave the new album a 7.4 out of 10, Torquil Campbell offered up a rant that not only tore into the music site and the reviewer but lamented the death of art and criticism, which as a result prompted much scoffing from some critics and bloggers, as well as approval from others.
