The Singles Jukebox

Imagine an alternate universe in which that Outasight turd was polished perfect, then send us hate mail for even DARING make that analogy…

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[6.55]

Jer Fairall: The pulsing euphoria of a whole history of anthems for transcendence found on the dance floor, from “I Love The Nightlife” to “Dancing On My Own,” recast as a hopeful introvert’s secret lament. She spins her favourite albums and anticipates another evening spent observing the rituals of the club kids from a wallflower’s distance, longing for the private joy of the sounds coming out of her bedroom speakers to manifest themselves into some kind of communal experience that actually includes her for once. If the song’s neatest trick is presenting all of this under the guise of one of the in-crowd, consider it less a deception than a defence mechanism, and know that those of us who get it hear it all too loud and clear.
[8]

Edward Okulicz: I love Saint Etienne, but “Tonight” is a misfire. Sarah Cracknell sings the song not like someone looking forward to a gig, but rather a woman on death row who’s been given a last night out in Camden in lieu of a last meal. “This could be my life,” she warbles dully, and maybe I’d forgive her, but 20 years ago, she sang “Everyone’s dreaming of all they’ve got to live for/joking around, still digging that sound,” which encapsulated the excitement of living the pop life so much better than this.
[5]

W.B. Swygart: “There’s some nice parts of London/You can see them from here” is one of my favourite pop moments of all time. “Maybe they’ll open with an album track/Or a top 5 hit, no turning back” is not.
[5]

Sabina Tang: By this late date I know to give Saint Etienne singles time and space. The first few listens, I thought the narrator was going on a first date (which she is, of course; just not the kind I was absent-mindedly envisaging), and — saving the stately strings, without which anchor the confection would unmoor in the wind like dandelion floss — the song itself wasn’t doing anything “Burnt Out Car” didn’t do better. (This is still true, to be honest.) Then I played it again this morning, and it moved me to tears, after which, overflowing with emotion, I tried to buy a ticket to that Specials/New Order/Blur Hyde Park gig in August, a real fool’s errand on hotel lobby wireless with a six-hour lag on Greenwich.
[9]

Brad Shoup: I will give in a bit to the spirit. And the top-notch drum programming. Just as the Eli Young Band depict a band’s hopeful spring, Saint Etienne paints the sturdy golden autumn. It’s just a little funny that this song is gonna slay in remix form.
[5]

John Seroff: This sounds old to me, both in the sense that “Tonight” is more of an unpublished outtake of Saint Etienne’s earlier work than a sparkling new track and in that it lacks vitality and necessity. 
[4]

Anthony Easton: Though Saint Etienne makes the argument that it is going-out music, it always struck me as music you put on at dusk, after going out. The dusk/dawn dialectic is strong in their work, and this piece, with a sound that stretches out to all hours, works both against a muddled middle.
[7]

Michaela Drapes: There’s something comforting about the fact that Saint Etienne has, for over half of my lifetime, sounded pretty much just like this. Much in the same way that New Order’s return to form in “Waiting for the Siren’s Call” felt like an old friend popping over for tea to talk about how they’ve got this great job and a comfortable home and a pretty nice life, really — so does this. I ache to throw this on a road trip mixtape and drive on to infinity.
[9]

Alfred Soto: When Sarah Cracknell sings “There’s a part of me only they can’t see/I can hardly wait” she both nails the faint, prim, abashed way in which she has dominated backing tracks for years and incarnates the hopes of every prim, abashed woman who still enjoys a late night at the disco without the dancing part. Who needs assertiveness when you’ve got her cool? The track’s thumpety-thump and ooh-oohed vocals are closer in spirit to the late nineties electro revival, but that’s always been Saint Etienne’s strength: positing the musical rediscovery as a way of looking forward.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: This is gorgeous. It’s also less like a Saint Etienne track than three-fourths of a Sophie Ellis-Bextor B-side, which can’t be why it’s so gorgeous. I sigh and romanticize my outings and music too, but this call is too puny; someday, my floaty, swooning dance track will come.
[7]

Iain Mew: Saint Etienne’s past career is one of my blind spots, so I can mostly only wonder as to whether they’ve always sounded this much like Kylie. Or at least like her current Radio 2-friendly incarnation. Whoever’s sound it is, it’s a very good one, which Saint Etienne carry off well. The fact that it’s a song about going to a gig on top of that ought to have me falling in love. I’m always a sucker for songs with references to interests which I share in general, and more specifically ones steeped in the love of pop music and its culture (see Art Brut, Hello Saferide, Diddy-Dirty Money and many more besides). Those song all have other things going for them besides, though. “Tonight” wears the cuteness of its wit a lot more prominently than it deserves, and too often presents the fact that it is about going to a gig as being enough in itself. There is one line in the chorus that captures a moment — “I will surrender to the sound and look at all the kids around” I can picture now, head thrown back and arms outstretched in disbelief at the perfectness of what is happening, no longer caring to focus on the stage — but “the sound is breaking like a wave” doesn’t work and the rest of the song rings a bit hollow. It doesn’t help that, unlike its protagonist, I never play a band’s albums before going to their show.
[6]