Saint Etienne

While I was excited earlier this week to read that English indie pop outfit Saint Etienne are to release a new album later this year, the news was tempered with the announcement that it is also to be their last. As Bob Stanley, one third of the group explains:

Hopefully we’ve made life a bit better for anyone who was listening. I like it when groups or singers stop recording because they feel like they’ve done all they wanted to do and said all they wanted to say. We think it’s time to say goodbye, and we wanted to do so on our own terms.

Perhaps he’s right - are you listening, Mick and Keith? After a career of 35 years, International will be Bob, Pete and Sarah’s 12th album, that seems like a nice number to bow out on.

With one exception, there has always been a different unifying theme to each of Saint Etienne’s albums. The electro-folk of 1994’s Tiger Bay, the kitchen sink drama of 2005’s Turnpike House, the ambient, ephemeral feel of last year’s The Night. But always sounding like Saint Etienne.

That exception is their 1991 debut, Foxbase Alpha. In an interview with Vice, Stanley said it was his least favourite Saint Etienne album, going on to explain:

I think just because it’s such a scrapbook of ideas. There’s no real unity to it. There are songs on it that I like. I can understand why it could be a fan-favorite, because I think we sound enthusiastic. But I think we sound more enthusiastic than accomplished. Some songs I’m quite proud of, others have quite obvious and clunky samples.

I mean, he’s right, the album is littered with samples from James Brown to Soul II Soul, Dusty Springfield to Pet Shop Boys (can’t have one without the other). Then there are all the bits of old TV & film soundtracks between the tracks. And the album opener, This Is Radio Etienne, uses the voice of veteran French football commentator Jacques Vendroux (“Inter Football, France Football”). But for me that was - and still is - part of the charm.

But Stanley is doing himself, fellow songwriter and keyboard player Pete Wiggs, and singer Sarah Cracknell a disservice by describing their debut as more enthusiastic than accomplished. In the introduction to his book Sleevenotes, Stanley claims that songwriting isn’t something that came naturally to him. But the likes of Carnt Sleep, Spring, She’s The One and Nothing Can Stop Us would suggest otherwise, with Sarah’s voice soaring above lovingly arranged slick lounge dance classics.

A pop group deciding to call it a day is definitely a first world problem, but this from Sarah:

I think we’re all feeling a little melancholy about ‘International’ being our last album, ourselves included. But please don’t be sad because there’s so much more fun to be had in the next year or so, classic Etienne pop and probably some live shows too. Can’t wait!

Seen the band live twice before. I think a third time just to check on enthusiasm vs. accomplishment.