- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Q MagazineOct 12, 2012They have made an amazing album about how amazing pop music can be. [Jul 2012, p.106]
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Jul 17, 2012Her male partners Bob Stanley and Peter Wiggs provide reliable disco-inflected pop or vice versa that the remixers on the optional bonus disc trick up with more wit and fidelity than we who avoid remixes sagely expect.
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Jun 7, 2012It has the vitality of today's top 40 dance-pop but is full of the kind of wisdom, wit and warmth that can only come with age.
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Jun 5, 2012This deft new album [is] a delight.
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Jun 4, 2012When it gets it right, it gets it absolutely spot on, but a little more variation wouldn't go amiss. However, the album's highlights – and there are many – are just so fantastic that you can forgive it an awful lot.
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Jun 4, 2012The dizzying succession of beats per minute paired with thoughtful lyrics about music's role in shaping memories gives Saint Etienne a chance to create a rare entity: Dance music for the thinking person.
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Jun 1, 2012This is easily Saint Etienne's best album since 1998's Good Humor.
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May 29, 2012Words & Music turns out to be one of the band's most enriching albums, both musically and emotionally.
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May 29, 2012Words and Music further demonstrates this while helping us realize just how lucky we are to still have them around.
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May 25, 2012Words and Music, the first full studio album in an aeon from Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, is a masterclass of pop theory and practice in perfect harmony.
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May 25, 2012What makes Words and Music stand out is that it's both polished and personal, a prime example of how a big pop sound can reach out and connect in the most intimate ways.
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May 24, 2012Words And Music expertly explores the intoxicated love of music and the sheer joy of being a music fan: feelings so universal that they will never be confined to particular eras.
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May 24, 2012Saint Etienne's best LP since 1994 masterpiece Tiger Bay.
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May 22, 2012Words And Music By Saint Etienne is an album that reaffirms all that is glorious and brilliant about pop music.
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May 21, 2012While Saint Etienne will always sound like Saint Etienne, these songs are their sharpest in over a decade.
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May 21, 2012There is perhaps no band with a greater appreciation of the sheer joy and thrill of pop music in its purest form than Saint Etienne. 'Words And Music By Saint Etienne' is not only their own unique take on what pop means to them it is also an incredibly fine album.
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UncutMay 14, 2012This is a beautifully executed love letter to the eternal pop rush. [Jun 2012, p.82]
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May 14, 2012Wonderful stuff.
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May 14, 2012Words And Music isn't just a celebration of popular music, but a hymnal ode to a loss of innocence, an end to the passions of our childhood.
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May 14, 2012Words and Music frequently sounds as dizzy with the joy of pop as Saint Etienne did 20 years ago.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 16
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Mixed: 1 out of 16
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Negative: 2 out of 16
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Jul 13, 2012