2004 was an interesting year for me. In music, there were some good new releases, and I intend to do a “Damek’s Top 5 of 2004″ or something, at least before 2005 is over. But the big thing about 2004 for me was the older (early 1990s, not that old) music I discovered and fell in love with. I want to cover some of that ground first. And I’ll start with Saint Etienne.
Saint Etienne are one of the early pioneers of melding pop structures with electronic music. They’re also one of the best bands at doing it. Their approach is to take the 1960s’ british club pop sounds and fuse them with the 1990s’ british dance club production. It works extremely well, and has been copied to lesser effect by countless other groups since they started doing it. And I can hardly believe I went through the whole ’90s as an electronic music fan without ever becoming a fan of Saint Etienne.
Heck, when I first started getting into electronic music, back around ’94 or ’95, when I could only afford the occasional CD, I bought a compilation called “Techno Dance Classics Vol. 1: Pump Up The Jam” that included their early hit “Nothing Can Stop Us” (from their 1991 album Foxbase Alpha), which quickly became my favorite track. A couple years later, when I was in thrall to Aphex Twin, I liked a couple of remixes he had done of Saint Etienne. Yet it wasn’t until 2004 that I finally went looking for their music and tried it out. And fell in love.
The thing about them is just that they have the sort of “euro-disco/60′s electro-pop” thing down pat, and on top of it they somehow manage to layer a certain magical glow that keeps drawing me back. Plus, and this is coming from a guy who generally hates lyrics and singing, the lyrics are clever and the singing is indispensable to the music. They’ve had a nice long career, and they’re still plugging on, with a new album planned for 2005. I’m glad I finally found them. Here’s a few more tracks from the six albums and numerous singles and EPs they’ve done so far: Archway People (You’re In A Bad Way single, 1993), I Buy American Records (Tiger Bay album, 1994), Sylvie (Good Humor album, 1998), and Heart Failed (In The Back Of A Taxi) (Sound Of Water album, 2000). That’s just a small sampling; there’s so much more good stuff. From their surprising cover of Neil Young’s “Only Love Will Break Your Heart” on their first album to the hip-hop tinted “Soft Like Me” on 2002′s Finisterre
Of course, I might not have liked them had I tried them back in 1995, or even a couple years ago. But with the last couple years being the age of 1980s electro revival (Fischerspooner, Adult.) and indie-rock repetition (see here), Saint Etienne hit just the right, relaxing, refreshing spot. Maybe they’ll refresh you a little, too.
