10 Dec 2009 by Chris     No Comments    Posted under: Entertainment

Albums of the Decade: No.11

Tales From Turnpike House by Saint Etienne

“Tony leaves the Depot late, seventeen years with the Unigate”

Yes, more lush orchestrated sixties-influenced pop. 2002′s Finisterre got Saint Etienne some great reviews, but for me their 2005 follow up Tales From Turnpike House is even better. It has everything a Saint Etienne record should have, a concept of sorts …plus David Essex! What’s not to like?

The album is a collection of songs describing characters and stories from a North London tower block, but unlike records by, say, The Streets, all human life is here. It’s probably the most parochially London album I’ve ever heard. It didn’t sell many – Saint Etienne albums never have – but that only conferred on it even more cool.

Amy checks the shopping list
Pedal bin, washing-up rack, Sandtex
And she goes to the baker’s to buy a loaf
Ah, she keeps forgetting it’s changed into the Tropicana Tanning Salon
And in the charity shop
Mrs. Brown sits at the counter
Pricing down some old stock
“The Moon’s a Balloon”, two copies of “Every Loser Wins”,
“Noel’s Blobbyland (Deluxe Edition)”
There’s not much on the doorstep recently
Something to do with eBay, Johnny reckons
He’s bidding on it now, for a Subbuteo catalogue, ’81-’82
He’ll win it, put it in a drawer, and forget he ever bought it

My copy of Tales From Turnpike House was accompanied by an EP of songs for toddlers, called Up The Wooden Hills, which my four-year-old (at the time) absolutely loved. Why? “Two of us have had kids in recent years and we got particularly fed up with nasty kids music”, said Sarah Cracknell at the EP’s launch. The band decided that just because kids want lyrics about animals and the alphabet, doesn’t mean that the music has to be knocked off in less time than it takes to write a children’s book by Sarah Ferguson or Madonna. It didn’t inspire a whole new genre, but at the time I wished it had.

• Albums of the Decade: No.12
• Albums of the Decade: No.13
• Albums of the Decade: No.14
• Albums of the Decade: No.15
• Albums of the Decade: No.16
• Albums of the Decade: No.17
• Albums of the Decade: No.18
• Albums of the Decade: No.19
• Albums of the Decade: No.20

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