Saint Etienne - C/D?

Yup! Check the archives Tom (and welcome!). There's a whole thread on Finisterre alone.

CVM">Saint Etienne: Search & Destroy

http://ilx.wh3rd.net/searchresults.php?board=2&mode=threads&q=&titlepart=etienne&name=&email=&username=&dateafter=&datebefore=&catid=all

Martin; yeah, seems a good thing to have these gradually building long threads; though how would you easily know if something from early 2001 say, had been added to?

In a way, perhaps, yeah. I was searching on Google "Web" with a few bands as keywords. You've probably covered them before on "Elidor" I suspect. Looks quite a site this, for music lovers of all kinds. :-)
How's the new site going?

Good question. One gets more hits on Kazaa for the latter than the former. Or at least did. Also, file-sharing denizens can't decide what Track 10 is actually called.

St Et are obviously classic. Even though Sound Of Water was tosh. Good Humour is vastly underrated too, esp "Lose That Girl". Fantastic singles band, and Hobart Paving/Who Do You Think You Are is clearly the greatest double-A sided single in history.

and WHY - WHy - is 'The Sound Of Water' not very good?!???

Hi Tom. Lots of Toms showing up recently. I think St Etienne are classic.

I really cannot see how anyone can like "How We Used To Live". That would outstay its welcome even if it were only one third of its length. (I feel the same way about "Avenue" actually, but not quite so strongly) The other tracks just don't go anywhere. It's like they decided on a direction without writing any bloody songs first... the difference is in that almost every song flitters about prettily without being memorable, or in fact, doing anything at all. The same can be said about some tracks off "Tiger Bay", admittedly, but they're in the minority on that record whereas they comprise the majority on SoW.

Classic, Classic, Classic!

though i am a bit up in the air these days about which album is my favorite. i used to would've said "So Tough + You need a mess of help" in a heartbeat, but both Tiger Bay (Western Wind/Tankerville - ummm yummm) and Good Humor have recently been the ones I go back to the most. And the debut is still simply stunning, if only for the sheer ratio of classique tracks it contains.

i recently made a 2-cd comp of my "best" StEt moments and called it "Saint Etienne: Better Than Your Favorite Band" because it's the most understated thing I could think to call it

Foxbase Alpha - A great CD, with a lot of their essential classics. This could be said about any of their albums, I suppose. "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" is one of the better covers I've heard, one that doesn't feature Sarah Cracknell on vox (and I've always wondered what it would sound like with her).

Tiger Bay - I sort of slept on this one for awhile, for no good reason at all. Maybe their tightest album. Definitely more dance-oriented than any of their other work, IMO.

So Tough - More often than not, I've seen this cited as their best. I can't agree, really. I listen to it least of all their albums, which isn't to say it's bad, because it's damn good, but it just never gripped me as much as some of their others.

Good Humour - This was how I first heard StEt. I find it to be a really wonderful, cohesive record, one that is probably perceived as the weakest of their discography by many hardcore fans. I don't see that at all.

Sound of Water - More "experimental", for lack of a better term. It features the really cold and sinister and magnificent "Heart Failed (In the Back of a Taxi)", "Sycamore", "How We Used to Live", etc...

Finisterre - Unreal. This is one of the more listened-to records in my collection since it was released. It's fairly remarkable this late in the game for a band to release an album that has a significant number of tunes I would place in their top 20 ("Action", "Stop and Think It Over", "Shower Scene", "B92", "Finisterre", "New Thing")

I'm really happy for that 90's poll, just for making everyone talk and think about St Et. As irritated as people seem, they're all wondering what's going on now. I'll admit to being surprised by the placement of the tracks; Like A Motorway should have been in front, perhaps.

I ranked all five, and I think Like A Motorway was my No. 1, or perhaps Nothing Can Stop Us. I initially only had two, out of guilt, but I looked over my list and realized that all the StEt songs were way better than half of what I'd chosen, so I decided to be honest. they're my favourite band.

Gear, you should get Smash the System for the tracks 'The Process', 'Burnt Out Car', and 'Archway People'. Also the fan club album Built On Sand, which is full of good stuff. All I'm missing from the official releases is Continental, Misadventures, and You Need A Mess Of Help, though I have CDR copies of the latter two.

The Trip is excellent.

I adore this band.

This said, Bob Stanley's sense of listening to anything and everything is worthy, and finding much to enjoy all over the place equally important. A critic who made good, and I salute that.

The whole Eurodance side to them: (He's On the Phone, Paul Van Dyk remixing Boy is Crying.) Dud!

But all the rest is classic, classic, classic.

Highlights: Foxbase Alpha, Filthy, Avenue, Join Our Club/People Get Real, all of Tiger Bay, but particularly the folk-dub ones (Whispering Wind/TankerVille) and have you heard Places to Visit, a mini album that came out just before Sound of Water? Classic!

Plus it's not often you get to use the word 'elegiac' about music without sounding like a twat, but since Like A Motorway is literally an elegy, I'm going to.

I'll own up to not owning Finisterre. Is it really good?

aint heard the new one, will give it a spin.

Hmm...well, I was the person who gave it the first place.. and nominated it in the first place. I love it for being just what it is - a gorgeous, bouncy pop song, all happy and sad at the same time and full of longing for someone, even though you know they're a bit of a wreck... And yes, the lyrics about Bruce Forsyth do make me smile, even now. I don't think they're being ironic in it or, if they are, I don't listen to it thinking about irony. I think Sarah really does want to help him through..

Yeah... yeah, that sounds about right.

I love it for how tossed off and effortless it is; it's a lovely lightweight pop song. I love it alongside, say Hobart Paving, which is huge and sad, or Avenue.

I'm really excited about what the next album will be.

I like it all but I think the two key tracks on Finisterre are "Shower Scene" and "B92", perhaps especially the latter although I enjoy the former more - and yeah it is something about the swagger, so diametrically opposed to the best moments on Sound of Water.

hey daavid,
first off i sent you the track via "yousendit", so hopefully you can grab it and hear for yorself (cos i'm really bad at describing these things). but i'd say it'd fit neatly on good humor, with a little more of the sparkley sheen of finisterre. sorta mid-tempo motown-ish track with pretty strings and tinkley piano. a second-person affair lyrically:
"fascination -
you talk so much about her -
fascination -
it's clear, you LOVE to say her name"

wonderful bridge that goes sorta 70s AM chord progression.

i hope the next record is all this good.

Why?

You're not going to necessarily empathise or appreciate how everyone else who listens will experience their music.

Really, what nonsense. I had "Foxbase Alpha" on t' other day, and it's a heartmelting thing to follow through; simply downloading the tracks on the basis of an ILX poll is hardly the same as listening to "So Tough", or "Tiger Bay" or whatever.

"The Trip" expresses Stanley and Wiggs' strength at subtle, moving sequencing; they are of course veterans of the mix-tape, and the first two Saint Etienne albums reflect this. Snatches of "Billy Liar!" etc. remoulded, refashioned within the musical context - which is itself assimilative. "Finisterre" is as brilliant as it is because of the rippling contributions of Michael Jayston, filling in the gaps, expressing the gaps, in the concept. Seems to me they were going for the Paul Scofield narrations for the film, "London". And indeed they made a short film did they not, based around the album; anyone seen this?

"Nothing Can Stop Us Now", along with Julee Cruise's "Falling" would at this second be my favourite singles of the 90s.

Because I'm an asshole.

So shut up.

Maybe.

I remember reading an article just before Finisterre the album came out where Bob said something along the lines of ‘the turn of the last century was at least as full as hatred and fear and aggression as this one’ – I paraphrase, badly. [Thinking now it’d make an interesting parralell to William Gibson’s Pattern Recognition in it’s ideas about and for the turn of the century and London…?]

The movie’s great – I hope it gets released at some point, they’re sounding vague from what I’ve read. It’s a sort of structured around the idea of a weekend in London in a style similar to Patrick Keiller’s London and Robinson In Space (I’m sure they mentioned them as influences too). The visuals are all beautiful, static shots of traffic and buildings and graffiti and people with interviews (Banksy, Mark Perry, Vashanti Bunyan are all I can remember right now) talking about living and working in London off screen, and about two thirds of the album and (some extra little micro-tunes ). More Michael Jayston too.

I hope I haven’t overused brackets (!).

The did make a movie, called Finisterre; it's an hour long, just images of London, accompanied by bits of the album and narration from a bunch of people(julian opie is one, lots of grayston) talking, well, about their London, and what the city is to them. I saw the NA premiere here at the Vancouver Film Fest. I really can't be objective about it; it felt like going to church, or a pilgrimage of some sort. I believe they're arranging a DVD release this year. It's definitely worth seeing.

B92 is the key, along with Finisterre, but it's all important(maybe not Amateur?). There's no obvious concept(eg "it's a soundtrack to the Fall of Rome, see?"), but it's full of statements of purpose; they claimed that it was their punk album, and I agree in that it takes their pomo tendencies much farther than before. is the question 'What is the city?' or a statement, 'This is OUR city'?. I honestly haven't worked it out for myself, but there's a lot going on. Not just deconstruction but reconstruction: "to tear it down and start again" is the mantra of the title track, and the movie talks a lot about urban decay and renewal, and what both mean, positive and negative. There is no ONE London: it is a text, and everyone builds their OWN London as they live their lives in it. It's a double entendre: Finisterre means 'the end of the world', but it's also a cute reference to the last outpost on the old shipping forecast. I'm possibly reading too much into this, but I've been trying to figure out my own city, and how I live in it and relate to it, and how to explain it. Finisterre's become the ideal, for me, correctly or incorrectly(which isn't the point anyway) in how to make sense of a city.

I love the album and the movie, and thinking about London as this concept because it's all so stupidly postmodern for me. See, I've never actually been to London; it's an abstract for me. I'm scared to go to London, or England at all, because I fear it won't measure up to what St Et have created for me.

add: to sum, I think the concept is London, subjectively.

fuck I never noticed that, now I feel like an idiot!

the album took a long time to grown on me, since I loved the Sound of Water so much and though that was pretty much the pinnacle of the band at the time. I don't necessarily think Finisterre is better, but it was pretty good.

Sound of Water is underrated. it got lots of press as an 'ambient experiment', which was unfair. It is true, though that it focussed on sound rather than philosophy(for lack of a better word), where as Finisterre flipped that.

Well you bloody should be. I'll be there, all dressed up an' all.

In some ways I feel like Saint Etienne are a lot like Belle and Sebastian, except you can still look vaguely indie and non-annoying after claiming to listen to them.

See: you're in a bad way.

No I'm not.