If I decide to carry on my 25 years since feature next year then my choice for Record of the Year won't feature for the simple fact I don't actually remember this in 1993. In fact I don't think I'd heard of Saint Etienne in 1993 despite the fact they had six Top 40 hits to their name by the end of the year.
It actually took until Top 40 hit number nine, "He's on the Phone" in 1995 for them to register on my radar, a record I very much liked. The following year singer Sarah Cracknell appeared on the Big Breakfast to play her first solo record "Anymore" and I assumed Saint Etienne were no more. A couple of years later I saw their greatest hits album "Too Young to Die" in Our Price which said "Singles 1990-1995" on it which confirmed to me they must have called it a day in 1995. Remembering how much I liked "He's on the Phone" though I bought the album.
It took me a while to get into most of the other tunes, it wasn't as dancey as I expected it to be and this one in particular wasn't dancey at all but despite that it was one I liked straight away.
It's one of those records that oddly gives me a rose tinted view of good music in the early 90s despite the fact it wasn't music I was listening to at the time and it doesn't really fit in with any genre which was big at the time. It made me reminisce even more at the early 90s when I saw the video which has East 17 graffiti on the wall.
At the time this came out East 17 had four Top 40 hits to their name with a fifth about to be released. Of those only two reached the Top 10, but after that they had a run of five Top 10 hits including a Christmas number one, so that East 17 advertising may have done the trick!
As it turned out, Saint Etienne hadn't called it a day, they have released plenty of music since and are still going today. I've since acquired all their albums and have seen them in concert a few times.
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