JOIN OUR CLUB: The Official Saint Etienne poll (#28 in a series) - Deadline 12th November

I will vote in this, despite owning nothing by St Etienne (though I taped a load of their early stuff back in the day) and not really having heard anything they've done since 1995. I've just listened to Good Humor on Spotify, though and I like it.

Foxbase Alpha really is a fascinating record.

At the time I could never really hear the supposed club influence, but on listening now it's all over it. I think the reason is that club music (the stuff I was aware of at least, and forgive the descriptions I'm about to try out) underwent a big stylistic shift in 1991 from a sort of slower and dubbier/bassier sound to the more clattery high-end of rave. Foxbase Alpha is of the former - so if you got into music in 1991, as I did, calling it a club record seemed as strange as having Inspiral Carpets on the dance charts.

Now, though, the name and vaguely piano-house feel put it right at the end of the casual culture lineage that in retrospect peaked with Italia 90. It and the references they were using turn, with time, into a fascinating window on a London-that-might-have-been, all mods and continental style and leafy pavement cafes - like an attractive French provincial city instead of the monster it turned into. Which was always a fantasy, of course, but it's illuminating that the fantasy should once have been so small-scale.

The other thing is that it's also obviously an indie album, in its amateurishness and slack production above everything - they were using a completely different palette from all the guitar bands, but the underlying DIY aesthetic is the same. I hear it in the spaces in the music, and overreliance on repetition, making it kind of awkward but usually interesting. A couple of albums later they've become slicker, but imo have lost a lot in charm.

the foxbase beta 'commentary' with Richard X is priceless. they talk about the whole Foxbase era, kicking around in London in the early 90s, the first stirrings of Britpop etc. properly revealing and hillarious too.

Foxbase Alpha is such a wonderful scrapbook of enthusiasms, old and new. It's like London's answer to Paul's Boutique (which, of course, they sample). I love the fact that some of the key samples were ones they'd literally just discovered via Jon Savage - he brought the dub influence which contrasts so strikingly with their classic pop/C86 instincts - so they feel new and exciting. There's some exquisite songwriting on there but it's more about the overall sound. Later on the balance shifted which is why I still prefer the first three - the movie samples on the first two were integral to the worldview they were mapping out. I still find myself quoting bits like the "I'm Helen Stevens and I'm having a party" bit from Peeping Tom. The message of Join Our Club was so apt - it really did feel like a club, but an inclusive one. The really specific references in Mario's Cafe and London Belongs to Me gave me such a potent sense of who they were and the life they led - that spring-like sense of arrival in London from the suburbs and the sheer joy of gigs and cafes and meeting up with friends - and it felt like a life that was potentially accessible to me, which is not a feeling I've ever got from many records. That sense of personality and place dipped in their middle period and then came back, through the prism of middle age, on songs like Teenage Winter and lots of Words and Music. Between Teenage Winter and Over the Border I love the war between doubt and faith in leading a life dominated by pop music. Teenage Winter's so brutal in its soul-searching: "Their old 45s gathering dust/With the birthday cards they couldn't face throwing away." It's one of my favourite ever songs about growing older. It's like Foxbase is Before Sunrise and Teenage Winter is Before Sunset.

The more I listen, the more I'm associating them with Pulp. Neither can rely on great songwriting - imo they only have a handful of pop classics between them - and both are at their best when they stretch out and become more cinematic. The arrangements are often similar too, and the spoken-word samples carry out a similar role to Jarvis' monologues.

I'd also say the underlying themes - ordinary work, everyday relationships, unremarkable fantasies - are the same; but for all that, they end up telling very different stories. I'm not sure how to best characterise the difference - north/south or working-class/middle-class seems trite. Maybe cinema is the key; where Pulp feed on filthy kitchen-sinkisms, St Etienne are trying to paint sleek Fellinis.

Jarvis supplied the cover photo for the original issue of "I love to paint"

And when I saw St Etienne live in Cardiff on the "So tough" tour, Pulp were the support band.

The other obvious comparator, the later you get into their career, is the Pet Shop Boys. I've got Finisterre on just now and if Neil were singing then it practically is a PSB album.

Voted! I changed my mind on my number one a few times but am really happy with the one I went for in the end, I just couldn't think of another song that moves me the way Chicken Soup does.

Chicken Soup?? The 33-second dialogue sample?

Ok that may have been a lie. I wouldn't really reveal my number one on here, where would the fun in that be that?

The poll results will be interesting for me, because I kind of lost interest after "Good humor" and never really recovered it, their albums didn't seem to be vital to the fabric of (my) life and the results poll will help guide me back into their later stuff. Their early stuff I adored and my poll will be biased towards the 90 - 98 era I know well - with some choice b-sides rather high up the list.

'Relocate' is something of a surprise

anybody gonna vote for "Tell Me Why"? I will.

For those of you who are not that familiar with St. Etienne's 'alternative' discography, I 'd like to recommend some of my favourite non-album tracks (b-sides, fanclub-only, christmas EPs, etc). Was going to post youtube links, but I don't have time.

California Snow Story
Duke Duvet
Your Head My Voice (voix revirement)
Hate Your Drug
Stranger In Paradise
Please
Southern Train
4:35 In the Morning
Keep Nothing
Puppy Love
The Way I Fell For You
We're In The City
Half Timbered
Northwestern
Through The Winter
Le Ballade De Saint Etienne
Gotta Jump

This is my top choice from their 'alternative' discography.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lf9HGXTWNtU&hd=1

My number one is on that list.

through the winter ftw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oSvRKadOBk

OK I'm posting one youtube from the tracks on my list above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSmYY_nlRbA

crap, why doesn't it embed?

Probably going on my ballot:

DJ (srsly guys the chorus is an earworm and Cracknell sounds marvelous)
Burnt Out Car
Who Do You Think You Are

yea DJ is huge. dunno if it can crack a top-20 for me tho, too much competition

Also want to rep for the original mix of 'Burnt Out Car' (can't find it on youtube). If it was up to me I would count it separately because it has nothing to do with the remix... and it's almost as amazing!

xp - DJ is definitely going to be in my ballot. Pretty sure "Over the Border" will also make it.

from WAM i'll probably be including 'last days of disco' & 'seventeen'. said it elsewhere but it sounds more and more like nearly on par with their early releases.

It's really, really good. Popular is the prime cut though, I think.

Every poll we do, I'm finding the artist is on the same trajectory - the very brightest tunes are in the early stuff, but the albums get stronger the later we go.

said it elsewhere but it sounds more and more like nearly on par with their early releases.

otm

Here is a break down of what I voted for.

Foxbase 2
So Tough 4
Tiger Bay 2
Good Humor 2
Sound of Water 1
Finisterre 1
Turnpike 3
Words & Music 2
B-side 1
One off singles 2

This is one of the few polls I've voted in where the band's recent work more than stands up to the early stuff.

i have my trax down to abt 50!

26 on my list, I can deal with that

What is Continental, incidentally?

It's a Japanese album that came out there around the time of "He's on the phone" and the Etienne De Crecy era, some tracks ended up on "Smash the system" and it got the 2 cd deluxe treatment first. A very good album, if not exactly cohesive.

It also has great sleevenotes about The Pebble Mill Effect iirc.

Hug My Soul was on my shortlist but on relistening it sounds like a big case of chorus-lets-down-verse. The transition, via a stock drumfill, takes some of the blame. It's not the drumfill per se, which works well in the intro to 'I Want To Hear It From You' by Go West. I digress...

Hug My soul stayed on my list because of the remixes..

What do we think of "Pale Movie"?

I think la la la la la la lah

and flamenco

and Sherpa Tensing

I think of it as SE's Domino Dancing - latin flavoured and I imagine it might divide opinion. The "softness of cinema seats" was nicked from something Taylor Parkes said, appearently.

recommended deep cuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa1wO8S06bI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cN7FSCThUN4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vWUHqbM9rk

top 3 for me, though not a deep cut:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xo4lRv51Hf0

im def voting for "are we gonna be alright", can't find a yt of it tho

I may vote for this. Would definitely vote for a version with Sarah on vocals!
http://youtu.be/CzBdXD-9F-I

Also contemplating including this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gthGa25Pabo

What's with the two Goodnight Jacks?

Deep(ish) cuts I may vote for:

4:35 in the Morning (Kid Loco Remix)
Mr Donut
Stormtrooper in Drag
I Buy American Records
Girl VII
My Christmas Prayer

Deepish cuts I may vote for:

Speedwell
Railway Jam
Calico
Former Lover
Stormtrooper In Drag
I Buy American Records
Hate Your Drug
Marble Lions
We're In The City
Sadie's Anniversary
Sycamore
B92

mr donut is klassic

former lover, marble lions, & maybe b92 are going on my list.

http://pinkie.ponychan.net/chan/files/src/135146554314.gif

Billy, with the gap between polls closing and results, I'm going to go ahead and recommend Pleasant Plains start the Hüsker Dü poll, if that's cool with you.

Fine by me, don't let me hold things up.