Smash the System: Singles and More [Import]

1. Only Love Can Break Your Heart

2. Kiss And Make Up

3. Nothing Can Stop Us

4. Spring

5. Carnt Sleep

6. Filthy

7. Join Our Club

8. People Get Real

9. Paper

10. Avenue

11. Mario's Cafe

12. You're In A Bad Way

13. Archway People

14. Who Do You Think You Are

15. Hobart Paving

16. Pale Movie

17. Hug My Soul

18. Like A Motorway

19. Cool Kids Of Death

20. The Process

See all 34 tracks on this disc

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Import only compilation featuring most of their official Heavenly era singles as well as B-sides, favorite album tracks & alternative or slightly remixed versions of older songs. 34 tracks including 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', 'Kiss And Make Up', 'People Get Real', 'Pale Movie', 'Like A Motorway', 'Burnt out Car', 'Jack Lemmon' and more. Sony.

Tracks:

Only Love Can Break Your Heart
Kiss and Make Up
Nothing Can Stop Us
Spring
Carnt Sleep
Filthy
Join Our Club
People Get Real
Paper
Avenue
Mario's Cafe
You're in a Bad Way
Archway People
Who Do You Think You Are
Hobart Paving
Pale Movie
Hug My Soul

Tracks:

Like a Motorway
Cool Kids of Death
Process
He's on the Phone
Angel
Burnt Out Car
Shad Thames
Wood Cabin
Sylvie
Lose That Girl
Bad Photographer
Goodnight Jack
Madeleine
4.35 in the Morning
Jack Lemmon
Saturday
52 Pilot

Album Description

Import only compilation featuring most of their official Heavenly era singles as well as B-sides, favorite album tracks & alternative or slightly remixed versions of older songs. 34 tracks including 'Only Love Can Break Your Heart', 'Kiss And Make Up', 'People Get Real', 'Pale Movie', 'Like A Motorway', 'Burnt out Car', 'Jack Lemmon' and more. Sony.

Album Details

2001 Issued Updated Compilation Replacing the Old "Too Young to Die" Anthology. Every Track Has Been Digitally Remastered to Glorious Effect. Includes Many Alternate Versions of Tracks (Like "Kiss and Make Up", that Now features Vocals by Sarah Cracknell), Single B's and Tracks from the Obscure Japanese Only Albums.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best collections around.......2007-03-29

This is one of the rare occasions when an album of greatest hits is so complete, not only gathering all the great songs for the loyal fans, but also giving to new potential fans the chance to know the band in all their variety and success.

Sarah Cracknell's voice is dreamy, the 70s-like tunes nostalgic, almost cinematic, the music covering an area from dream pop to independent. This collection consists of two discs yet you can't get enough of it. Their biggest hits are all here, including 'You're in a bad way', 'Only love can break your heart', 'Pale Movie', 'Who do you think you are', 'Hobarts Pavement', 'He's on the phone' and many others. The music strongly resembles a lot of Cafe del Mar collections only it's better.

If you miss that sweet era when pop was not 'pop' but a pop-ular genre of music for adults, go ahead and buy this album. Saint Etienne are unique, and frankly, there is no competition around.

I Love This Band!!.......2006-05-10

I've been a fan of Saint Etienne since the age of 14 - over 12 years now. Sarah Cracknell was my first (and only) teenage crush after seeing her perform on Top of the Pops around Christmas time 1993. Not only did I find her amazingly attractive, she also had a great voice. That was the first time I had heard of the band and I have collected a lot of their stuff since then.

This compilation is missing a few great tunes which have been replaced with other great tunes. Listening to Sarah singing Hobart Paving and Mario's cafe in her unique way is a treat. Hers is the only voice in pop that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Along with Pulp and the Arctic Monkeys, Saint Etienne have encapsulated English life in a way that few others have managed.

Bob and Pete's clever production is superbly balanced by Sarah's gorgeous vocals. Top-quality music always stands the test of time and Saint Etienne's longevity is testament to this. This album covers their music up to 1999 and they have continued to craft superb music since then.

Great SE collection for beginners, good addition for fans.......2005-09-06

_Smash the System_ is great collection of earlier (pre-_Sound of Water_ as far as I can tell) Saint Etienne. It's less of an attempt at a definitive collection, ala the more recent anthology _Travel Edition_, and more of a nicely eclectic sampling of the group's prodigious output. If you've heard some SE that you have, of course, loved and want to get a sense of their wider catalog, this a good place to start. The two disks also serve as great party disks or fodder for brilliant pop mixes in their own right. It also shows that SE are no one consistant thing/genre except great pop music. Sometimes they are more dancey, sometimes more trip-hop, at others neo-classical Phil Spectorish pop. It's the sort of group that can make you think of Massive Attack, Sterolab, B.A.D., and Papas Fritas at the same time, while still being their own wonderfully incomparable thing.
It's hard to judge the title phrase "singles and more" as, at least according to the liner notes, all of the songs were previously albumn tracks, though at least some of these albumns were Japan only releases and almost all of them are a challenge to find in the U.S. (I suspect there's some story here about SE having had bad early experiences with U.S. distributors. _So Tough_ came out on WB but more recent releases have been on Subpop. Maybe it has something to do with that shampoo comercial.) So far as I can tell, many of the singles are not appreciably different from the albumn tracks that I already had from _So Tough_ and _Good Humour_. Still, these are fabulous songs. I had lost my copy of _Fox Base Alpha_ and so was greatful to have those great indie-pop classics back, and my girlfriend especially liked the section of dance-mix tracks that we hadn't heard before.
SE fans (at least those who are willing to shell out for the imports) may not be especially well served by this collection, as they will have many of the tracks already. Still, it's not a bad price for a two-disk set, especially as an import. So, if you want to widen your exposure to SE or introduce someone else to them, this is a fine way to do it.

a purchase to ponder.......2004-12-21

it seems as if i've made it my mission in life to accumulate as much saint etienne stuff as i can so i recently purchased this album. there's only one bad thing about compilation albums and it's that they seem to miss the flow that you'd get on a regularly produced project. this holds true for the first disc even though it contains a few of my favs from the saints; with that said, it is a great introduction to their sound though. the second disc however, is a gem seeing as how it has that flow that the first one misses, a rarity indeed... any saint fan would love it i think.

Complete - from cover to cover.......2004-02-26

If you are a Saint Etienne fan, than this is for you. This 2 disc set is so well put together. I love the packaging as well - it's very complete, including all of their best tracks. It's not very easy to find in local music stores it seems, so here would be the place to order it.