Track Listing

1. This Is Radio Etienne
2. Only Love Can Break Your Heart
3. Wilson
4. Can't Sleep
5. Girl VII
6. Spring
7. She's The One
8. Stoned To Say The Least
9. Nothing Can Stop Us Now
10. Etienne Gonna Die
11. London Belongs To Me
12. Like A Swallow
13. Dilworth's Theme

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53681 in Music
• Released on: 2001-12-17
• Number of discs: 1

Customer Reviews

Their first and probably best album
This album starts as it means to go on. A fantastic radio sample leading into Only Love can break your heart. This is the song which will make or break you as a fan of Sarah Cracknell's vocal style and therefore St Etienne. If like them both then the album will be a treasure to you. Mellow instrumentals, whispy vocals, catchy feel good pop which has been written and performed by three clever musicians. Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs are the talent behind the music with the wonderful vocals of Sarah Cracknell.Together they produced a fantastic debut record. As already stated a truly english stlye of pop. Clever, warm, melancholy, sometimes strange but always stylish. One of the most underated bands of our time which perversley I find quite good. Real stardom might have taken them in a different direction. Buy this. You really will feel that you joined their club!

Classy debut
Fifteen years on, St Etienne are still an underestimated force, despite, or perhaps because of, their consistent chart appearances. Of course Bob Stanley, Pete Wiggs and Sarah Cracknell are not only about commercial songs, but have constantly looked forwards and backwards in their music, one minute constructing mix albums of records to be found on the jukeboxes of sixties' greasy spoons, the next collaborating with To Rococo Rot or handing over their multi-tracks to the most avant remixers of the day.
Foxbase Alpha, their highly regarded 1991 debut, set a pattern, juxtaposing eclectic samples between songs that might be poppy, wistful, surreal or kitsch. They also used the CD booklet in a different and new way, here with an essay on London by Jon Savage and some iconic photographs.
In the early days, they lacked a regular singer and on their debut single as St Etienne in 1990 (included here) they borrowed the singer Moira Lambert (from Faith Over Reason) for their transformation of Neil Young's Only Love Can Break Your Heart, a regular radio play to this day, and on its follow up, the non-album Let's Kiss And Make Up (originally by the Field Mice) enlisted Donna Savage from Dead Famous People. Once Sarah Cracknell appeared, however, they had found their perfect foil with her summery and evocative lightness of tone. She first appeared on the suitably titled single Nothing Can Stop Us Now, a minor hit in May 1991 that paved the way for this deceptively influential album a few months later, which is still such a joy to listen to

Instant classic and still a treasure !
Released in 1991 this highly rated album launched trio St.Etienne from dancefloor obscurity to a certain amount of acclaim and instant fame. Having a minor hit in the Neil Young cover "Only love can break your heart", pop perfectionists St.Etienne put togehter a catchy and dance oriented piece of music easy to fall in love with, or even falling in love with. Up to this day, 11 years gone by and among my over 1000 albums, Foxbase Alpha still is a treasure and standout album and includes several of my dearest moments in life. Highly recommended.