A Year of Blind Spots: Foxbase Alpha

Joe is working through a list of albums that he considers "blind spots," i.e. albums that he's never heard but feels like he should.

Foxbase Alpha

Saint Etienne

1991

What 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die has to say about Foxbase Alpha by Saint Etienne:

When we are young, we all imagine the fantasy world we will inhabit later, the jobs we will do. Growing up in London's suburbia during the 1980s, Saint Etienne's Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs wanted to live in Swinging Sixties London, full of groovy styles and classic pop sounds. No Austin Powers caricature; just hip young things setting the beat. And on their debut album Foxbase Alpha, Stanley and Wiggs—together with singer Sarah Cracknell—got their wish.

The title was taken from the pair's in-joke for a room full of attractive women (or foxes, as they would have it), while the sleeve was based on a Sixties children's book. The album itself is swathed with warm pop reference: the swirling strings and girlish vocals of "Spring" invoke the Ronettes, while "Girl VII"'s stoic listing of London Underground stations recalls Peter Cook's turn in the Sixties cult classic Bedazzled.

Foxbase Alpha is no retro time capsule, though. While it looked to the Sixties for inspiration, the clever sampling, insistent beats, and synthesizer production (learned at home by Stanley and Wiggs) ensured Saint Etienne had one foot in the dance culture of the early Nineties. The wistful, loved-up cover of Neil Young's "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" was a club classic, paving the way for the likes of the Chemical Brothers, while "Nothing's Going to Stop Us" drove a sophisticated Rolls-Royce through clubland, proving there was more to dance than disco.

Sixties London fueled this record. Nineties London built it. But with its passport fully stamped, it was a dance classic for the whole globe.

What Joe has to say about Foxbase Alpha by Saint Etienne:

It might seem like I'm reading these 1001 Albums descriptions before I start listening, but I'm not. I am more or less picking albums out of the book that feel interesting to me just based on name or general aesthetics, then taking a picture of the blurb, and then, maybe fix or six days into listening, I'm finding that photo and transcribing it onto the blog. So I spent all my time with Foxbase Alpha this week—including an extremely early morning drive back from the airport, which felt like it fit the mood pretty decently—assuming that "Saint Etienne" was the stage name for the female musician on the cover of the album.

Saint Etienne, for their first album, was actually comprised of two dudes (see above). Vocalist Sarah Cracknell wasn't even an official member at this point, and plus, she's not the woman on the cover. I don't know if learning about the true nature of the band makes their music sound any different. It could just be that I felt stupid assuming. Foxbase Alpha is the type of album that makes you forget all that anyway. It's an album that should probably be heard on the dancefloor primarily, but you can still groove along in a haunted cubicle.

The blurb mentioned how this influenced a whole host of '90s dance and house musicians, and in that way, I'm starting to see that 1001 Albums prioritizes those bands that are touchstones of certain genres or sounds. They prefer the influencers over the influenced. I've never heard anything by the Chemical Brothers, but I'm assuming that their music is more well known that Saint Etienne's, and probably more critically lauded. But Saint Etienne was first, and so, they have an album you must listen to before you die. I don't think there's anything wrong with viewing music through that lens, but there might also be bigger questions here than "who influenced whom?"

Like, I can easily see the throughline from Foxbase Alpha to the Avalanches' Since I Left You. I hear "I'm from the United States of kiss my ass!" here and think back to the hook of "He's crazy in the coconut!" The samples are used in similar ways—lighter here, of course, but still with a deft touch. It's like the Avalanches heard this album and thought, okay, but what if it was all samples? Something like "Nothing Can Stop Us Now," a song that is mostly Dusty Springfield samples but still fucking kills in Saint Etienne form, I could totally see people being inspired by this.

Other artists being inspired by it, I mean. Not me. I wasn't really inspired to dive into dance music after listening to Foxbase Alpha, but I can pretty easily get into the dance music whenever it arbitrarily passes through my ears.