Saint Etienne : Releases >>
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Smash The System : The Best of St. Etienne >>
Smash the System is a 34-track best-of compilation following the UK trio's remarkable progression from suave masters of post-rave dub soul into protagonists of ironic pastiches of cheesy 60s pop. Producers Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs even acquired bouffants to match their retro fetish, and their twee-voiced singer Sarah Cracknell dressed as if she'd just stepped out of a mini for a David Bailey photo shoot. For a time they smartly blended guitar pop with the emerging dance scene but like other bands formed by music journalists (Gay Dad take note) they became too clever for their own good. Smash the System kicks off with "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", St Etienne's most accomplished piece of work. It was their debut cut, remixed by Andy Weatherall, and was instrumental in pioneering the indie-dance crossover genre that hugely benefited groups such as Primal Scream, the Stone Roses and the Happy Mondays in the early 1990s. But St Etienne continued on a different curve, veering into quasi-comedic records such as "He's on the Phone" which pokes fun at Kylie Minogue's early career and the Sandie Shaw-like "The Bad Photographer". They later recaptured their early dancefloor swagger and had a top 10 hit ("Tell Me Why") in conjunction with Paul Van Dyk. Unfortunately this doesn't appear on this collection. Going through 10 years of their work you can see the dub and breakbeat influences diminish in direct proportion to the influx of silliness, which is probably why St Etienne are still regarded as one of pops great underachievers. The remix album Casino Classics probably does them better justice. --Jake Barnes
Burnt Out Car >>
London Conversations: The Best Of Saint Etienne >>
Tales From Turnpike House [+ Up The Wooden Hills EP] >>
This is the Special Edition version, which includes the bonus "Up the Wooden Hills" EP. Times were when the term "concept album" meant having to phone in sick to wade through some four hour long metaphysical prospectus on flying Nepalese goatherds performed by men in long capes. But not anymore. The storyboard to Saint Etienne's Tales From Turnpike House - in nature sharing many of the proletarian grievances of The Streets' A Grand Don't Come For Free and Blur's Modern Life Is Rubbish - is set in and around an Islington high rise and its charmlessly franchised local watering hole "The Hat And Fan" public house; a dysfunctional Camberwick Green environment populated by drifters, dreamers and misfits, where the circadian essentials of the neighbourhood bakery have been supplanted by the pretensions of tanning salons and where the alleyways (the sweet easy listening of "Side Streets") afford pleasant strolls for those unphased by the prospect of having one's wallet emptied and face rearranged. While film director Mike Leigh's bleak burlesques and the astringency of Luke Haines' Black Box Recorder provide honourable comparisons, Saint Etienne remain in love with wit, optimism, The Beach Boys and cut-price electronic disco. Thus, the eastern Eurovision witchery of "Lightning Strikes Twice" and the rooftop party funk-lite of "Stars Above Us" provide valuable pop hit currency, necessary checks and balances to the suffocating social fragmentation narrated on the outstanding "Teenage Winter". Even David Essex - it's official, he's cool again - pops up playing Richard Briers to Sarah Cracknell's Felicity Kendall on the rat race opt-out "Relocate". Tales From Turnpike House is just the sort of record to give concept albums a good name. --Kevin Maidment
Burnt Out Car [CD 2] >>
Too Young to Die: the Singles Collection 1991-1995 >>
I Was Born on Christmas Day >>
Smash The System - Singles 1990-99 >>
You're in a Bad Way >>
So Tough >>
This eclectic second disc from the graceful London trio features dub-dance grooves, cafe folk, Rush samples, a Van Dyke Parks arrangement, Eno-meets-rap experiments, and a gentle pop single ("You're In A Bad Way") that could have been sung by Cilla Black in 1965. A puzzle worth solving. --Jeff Bateman