[3] The album was recorded in a style which drew on the club culture and house music of the time, but also incorporates the group's characteristic love of 1960s pop, with tracks also bridged by samples from films or by short songs.

At the time of recording, Sarah Cracknell was not fully part of the group, and as a result she does not sing on "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", which is sung by Moira Lambert.

[5] "Nothing Can Stop Us", one of the group's most famous singles, features a very prominent sample of Dusty Springfield's track, "I Can't Wait Until I See My Baby's Face" (from her 1967 album Where Am I Going?).

[6] The young woman on the cover of Foxbase Alpha, Celina Nash, was a member of the group Golden alongside Lucy Gillie and Candida Richardson; they released two singles ("Anglo American"/"Don't Destroy Me" in 1992, and "Wishful Thinking", written by Jarvis Cocker, in 1993) on Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs's Icerink Records label.

[7] Writing for Melody Maker, Simon Reynolds was impressed by how Saint Etienne's "learned eclecticism" and "pop-about-pop approach" had yielded a cohesive album instead of a "whimsical pick'n'mix", calling Foxbase Alpha "a record that charms you into a gooey stupor, rather than burns your eye with visionary vastness.

"[18] In NME, Tim Southwell lauded the album as "touching, humorous and genuinely bloody interesting", crediting Saint Etienne for "pulling their influences together with a conviction all their own.

In addition to this, the special edition included a 12"x12" book, download code for the entire album in MP3 format, as well as reproductions of promotional material from the original release.