Music Arcades: Saint Etienne: So Tough

I still can't find the original Douglas Coupland quote that I mentioned before about him loving So Tough — I think it's been erased from the web — but I have at least found corroborating evidence. Doug writes, "Listening to a Saint Etienne song is like having a really good game of tennis or something." Tennis doesn't have the same Class connotations in Canada as it does in England — where I've always suspected that the demographics of tennis fans and Saint Etienne fans overlap a fair bit. Nevertheless, it's a strange metaphor; and also a strange coincidence, as I'd always puzzled over the lyric of the first track, Mario's Cafe, with its reference to "Tuesday morning tennis". That didn't seem to fit with the rest of the milieu of the song: bacon rind, Pepsi, Kentish Town, Glitter Band, Racing Post and rounds of toast. I just checked the lyrics and it's "Tuesday morning ten a.m." Which makes sense despite its clumsiness.

I might take a Coupland musical recommendation with a pinch of salt now, but ten years ago I couldn't pass by an album that he was even rumoured to like. I'm glad I didn't, because there's something very wonderful about So Tough, to which I was deaf at the time of its release. One of the things about it is the way they've digested the canon of popular music so astutely, and re-presented it as a deliciously light folk-pop cocktail, with fab arrangements. In this respect, it reminds me of Mellow Gold (which Lucy's been playing recently; it's damn good) and Anarchy — both of which come from that same 1993/4 period, and make me wonder if maybe the mid-nineties weren't quite as bad as I remember them.

I find this is the last of my Saint Etienne albums to appear on Music Arcades, and I've more or less fenced myself in terms of having anything non-repetitive to say. However, in summing up the whole shebang, your honour, I get a sense of frustrating slipperiness with Saint Etienne. If ever I consider dismissing them, I come unstuck in the face of albums like this one and Tiger Bay. Yet when I anticipate greatness, in the case of Tales from Turnpike House, I get left feeling hollow. My verdict: despite being so clearly calculated, there's an alchemy to Saint Etienne that's brilliantly and/or irritatingly enigmatic.