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Named after a French football team, childhood friends Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs put aside careers as budding music journalists to mix girl group hooks, sugar sweet vocals and lilting Euro disco into some of the sharpest indie pop of the 1990s. Initially the concept of Saint Etienne was for the two producers to work with a different vocalist on each track, but when Sarah Cracknell lent her seductive, hushed harmonies to a re-working of Neil Young's 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', she soon became a permanent fixture.
Their 1991 debut album 'Foxbase Alpha' became a cult favourite and was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize, but it was their second album 'So Tough' two years later that proved to be their breakthrough, reaching number seven in the UK and producing the hit 'You're in a Bad Way'. The follow-up 'Tiger Bay' in 1994 also broke into the top ten and is generally cited as the band's finest moment, paving the way for the huge European dance floor hit 'He's On the Phone'.
A collaboration with Paul Van Dyk on the single 'Tell Me Why (The Riddle)' gave the band another hit in 2000, followed by the album 'Tales from Turnpike House' which featured guest vocalist David Essex. In 2009 they released a greatest hits album, 'London Conversations: The Best of Saint Etienne', which featured two brand new tracks, 'Burnt Out Car' and 'Method of Modern Love', and a re-release of their debut album under the re-worked title of 'Foxbase Beta' was released alongside. They released their eighth album, 'Words and Music By Saint Etienne' in 2012 followed by a 2017 release for 'Home Counties'.
Artist biography compiled by BDS/West 10. All rights reserved
