Commonly associated with the indie dance scene of the s, their music blends club culture with s pop and other disparate influences. It was followed by So Tough , with the number twelve single " You're in a Bad Way ", and the techno folk experiment of Tiger Bay ; both albums reached the top-ten.
The band embraced indie pop on Good Humor , with its lead single " Sylvie " reaching number twelve. By the new millennium, Saint Etienne had pivoted towards ambient music on Sound of Water , while Finisterre and Tales from Turnpike House distilled these stylistic diversions and a return to their early influences.
The s, with Words and Music and Home Counties , saw a contemporary update of their sound. The band incorporated samples for the first time in nearly two decades on I've Been Trying to Tell You , which became their highest-charting album since at number fourteen. Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs were childhood friends and former music journalists , who once had a fanzine called Caff which had developed into a record label by However, after working with Sarah Cracknell on " Nothing Can Stop Us ", they decided to make her the permanent vocalist, and Cracknell has written or co-written many of the band's songs.
Saint Etienne were associated with the " indie dance " genre in the early s. Early work demonstrated the influence of s soul , s dub and rock as well as s dance music, giving them a broad palette of sounds and a reputation for eclecticism.
Years later, The Times wrote that they "deftly fused the grooviness of Swinging Sixties London with a post- acid house backbeat". In , the band also released two singles, "7 Ways to Love" and "He Is Cola", under the name Cola Boy with different singers one of them being future radio personality Janey Lee Grace , who recorded and appeared in the video for the former ; their explanation for publishing under a pen name is that the tracks were "too cheesy for Saint Etienne.
