Pop Blog: Saint Etienne - Deluxe Edition
February 2nd, 2010
posted by Ciaran Gaynor
Saint Etienne: (left to right) Pete Wiggs, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley
For this week’s blog I’ve decided to praise a couple of the best things in pop: Universal’s Deluxe Edition series and particularly the esteemed label’s treatment of the back catalogue of the most amazing (and amazingly undervalued) pop group of all time: Saint Etienne. All of Saint Etienne’s studio albums are due for the Universal deluxe makeover treatment; Foxbase Alpha, So Tough, Continental and Sound Of Water are already out and the rest (Tiger Bay, Good Humor, Finisterre and Tales From Turnpike House) are to follow this year. Each reissue contains extensive sleevenotes form some of the greatest writers on pop; England’s Dreaming author Jon Savage deals with Foxbase Alpha, Freaky Trigger’s Tom Ewing provides the excellent essay for So Tough and The Guardian’s Jude Rogers has been asked to take care of Finisterre. Not only do you get to read these writers’ fascinating insights into what makes pop tick, you get it all via references to Saint Etienne’s ace records, an ouevre which is, to my mind, the greatest hidden gem the pop world has to offer. You will have deduced at this point that Saint Etienne are my favourite group. Consisting of Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell, their music charts the development of post-Acid pop, Britpop, post-rock and glitchy electronica, and even what they used to call “Eurocheese”. These records are peppered with undeniable shiny pop classics like He’s On The Phone, Only Love Can Break Your Heart and Who Do You Think You Are. Granted some of these shoulda-been-number-one-with-a-bullet gems stalled at number 39, but that’s where being ten steps ahead of the pack gets you.
When I was a teenager and going through that “rebellious” pop-hating phase, they were the band who seemed to say “Hang on, pop is at least 40 years old and there’s much in that history to admire”. Saint Etienne were and remain great pop archivists, to the extent that they recently established their own dedicated reissues label (Eclipse). So Tough was my favourite album around the time that I was just starting to explore the backwaters of pop. Some called it “magpie pop”, and the album is packed with samples from old films like Peeping Tom, Lord Of The Flies and Madness’ (seemingly forgotten by most people) Take It Or Leave It. Avenue was the record that sucked me in. I bought the cassette single (!) from the Virgin Megastore (!!) and never looked back; to my 16 year old ears it sounded like the most otherworldy, mind-expandingly beautiful pop record in the history of the universe. It sent me dashing back to listen to the Beach Boys again, it also sounded like an amalgamation of A.R. Kane and The Cocteau Twins, but with the melodic clout of The Bee Gees or ABBA and the technical precision of Kraftwerk. The b-sides were incredible too – I got into The Velevet Underground because I read (Avenue b-side) Paper sounded like them. On So Tough itself I was bombarded with this panoply of pan-generational, multicultural pop; Railway Jam is indebted to dub reggae, You’re In A Bad Way is perfect 60s pop parody, Junk The Morgue sounds like some rough old House thing on Trax. And yet it definitely all had that Saint Et “stamp”, because there was a sense that every sound that was being chucked into the mix set the forgotten alongside the acclaimed, Saint Etienne weren’t picking things out of a spirit of elitism or showing off. Rather it felt like being let in on a club; their 1992 single Join Our Club was like a manifesto that that extent. Who else would have the audacity to do a cover of Stranger In Paradise – and make a great fist of it? On the So Tough Deluxe Edition it sits next to a cover of I’m Too Sexy. They were that kind of band. But they also wrote stone-cold classics like Hobart Paving and Nothing Can Stop Us and Like A Motorway and The Process. All the while their records were stuffed with lyrical references to The Four Tops, Carole King, The KLF, House Nation and World Of Twist. The only reason I mention this is because this fandom shines through on their records – you can hear that this group love pop, all of the neglected and forgotten one-hit wonders as much as the acclaimed “legends”.
Critical consensus seems to hold Foxbase Alpha to be the best Saint Etienne album, although I prefer Finisterre. Finisterre was their angry album, and eventually became an arty film which on one level can be viewed as a documentary about London at the beginning of the current century, and on the other as a neat autobiography of Saint Etienne themsleves. They’re famous for their connection to London, and their music has always really been the story of the relationship between music and different environments. Like London itself, on these albums there is a lot to take in. Tiger Bay is a techno-folk concept album from 1994 which featured contributions from Underworld and Stephen “Tea Towel” Duffy. Sound Of Water is their foray into experimental territory and sounds “at once pretty and quadratic, like daisies grown in hydroponic vats”, according to sleevenote writer Roy Wilkinson. Tales From Turnpike House was a concept album about a tower block that saw St Et collaborate with Girls Aloud producers Xenomania and brill 70s heart-throb David Essex. Put simply if you haven’t heard all of these records and all of their b-sides and rarities, and if you haven’t pored over their artwork or ever tried figuring out just what the hell the lyric to Avenue is supposed to be then it’s time to start NOW! These Deluxe Editions look, sound and ARE beautiful and mesmerising in the way only the very best pop music can be. Foxbase Alpha was recently reswizzled by Richard X. Titled Foxbase Beta, it’s available via Rough Trade and guess what – it’s a million times better than it needs to be. Snap these records up now, readers.
Foxbase Alpha (Deluxe Edition), So Tough (Deluxe Edition), Continental (Deluxe Edition) and Sound Of Water (Deluxe Edition) are all available now on Universal/Heavenly.
Foxbase Beta is available via Rough Trade.
