Saint Etienne

Over the course of a long, successful career, Saint Etienne have built their endlessly stylish sound around skillful sonic architecture, joyful plundering of a wide range of genres and songs that quite often show a surprising amount of emotional depth. Initially designed by the duo of Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs as a project with revolving vocalists, they set that notion aside once Sarah Cracknell joined. They based songs around startling samples and combined balanced, slick dancefloor tracks with heartbreaking ballads; they had a hit right away with 1991's Foxbase Alpha LP. F...