Suede

Suede are the band who opened the door through which Blur, Oasis and all of Britpop would later walk.

In the early nineties, when British rock was dozing between shoegaze and the hangover of the Manchester sound, they turned up with something different: dramatic, elegant, sexually ambiguous songs.

They gave British pop back its mystery and its glamour. They were the first of the wave, the ones who lit the fire, even if others went on to fill bigger stadiums.

They are still active.

The best before they played

Few bands started out carrying pressure like theirs, and the story says it all.

On 25 April 1992, Melody Maker — at a time when the British music press could make or break careers — put them on the cover with a blunt headline: the best new band in Britain.

The insane detail is that Suede had not released a single single. Not one. "The Drowners" came out in May, a month later.

They were crowned the best before the public could hear a note.

The bassist Mat Osman later described how surreal it was: they had spent years being ignored, unable to get gigs or press, and suddenly the whole country knew who they were thanks to a cover.

Carrying that kind of expectation would have sunk almost anyone. Not Suede, because they had the goods to back it up.

Their first album came out in March 1993, went straight to number one, sold more than a hundred thousand copies in its first week and was the fastest-selling British debut in a decade, since "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood. It won the Mercury Prize, and they gave the twenty-five thousand pounds of prize money to Cancer Research.

They survived the enormous hype because, this time, the hype was right.

Bowie and the Smiths, crossed

Suede's sound came out of a precise mixture.

On one side, the glam of David Bowie, with its theatricality, its androgyny, its drama. On the other, the melancholy, literary pop of The Smiths, with its lonely-bedroom romanticism.

Out of that union came something new: powerful, sensual guitars, lyrics about the margins, sex, drugs, the lives of those who do not fit into grey England.

And out front Brett Anderson, an androgynous, provocative singer who played with ambiguity. In 1992, in Melody Maker, he defined himself with a line that followed him all his life: a bisexual man who has never had a homosexual experience.

Years later he would say it had been taken out of context, that he was talking about songwriting and about how not everything is sung in the first person.

Anderson understood, like Bowie, that pop could be a place for the odd and the ambiguous. At a moment when American grunge was preaching slackness and not caring about anything, Suede did the opposite: pure ambition, pure elegance, pure drama.

The partnership that broke

Like The Smiths with Morrissey and Marr, the creative heart of Suede was a duo: Brett Anderson and the guitarist Bernard Butler, a musician of dazzling talent.

And, also like The Smiths, it broke.

In 1994, during the recording of the second album and at the peak of their fame, Butler issued an ultimatum: sack the producer Ed Buller or he would leave. Anderson refused, and Butler was out.

It could have been the end. But he had already recorded most of his guitars, and the band did something remarkable: they recruited a seventeen-year-old guitarist, Richard Oakes, finished that second album — "Dog Man Star", now considered their masterpiece — and carried on.

"Coming Up", from 1996, would be their best-selling record worldwide.

They survived the loss of their genius, something The Smiths never managed.

What to remember

Suede are proof that being first matters, even if others later take the greater glory.

Put on "Animal Nitrate", "The Beautiful Ones", "Trash" or "The Drowners", and you will hear the sound that brought British rock back to life: glam and drama and elegance, sensual guitars, lyrics for the odd ones, all with an ambition nobody else had at the time.

They lit the fuse of Britpop, that explosion later led by Blur, Oasis and Pulp. But they got there first, and they gave that wave its first push and a good part of its style.

They carried the impossible weight of being declared the best before proving anything, and they backed it up. They lost their guitar genius and carried on. And they never fell into the easy tough-boy pose that defined the more commercial end of Britpop.

They stayed elegant and dark, faithful to their own thing. That faithfulness is what made them last.

---

Sources

Suede, known as The London Suede in the United States following litigation over the name, British band formed in London in 1989 by the singer Brett Anderson, the bassist Mat Osman and the guitarist Justine Frischmann, who remained in the group between 1989 and 1991, before any recording, and would later found Elastica; the drummer Simon Gilbert joined in June 1990 and the guitarist Bernard Butler completed the key line-up. Inspired by the glam of David Bowie and the pop of The Smiths, they are considered pioneers of Britpop. On 25 April 1992 Melody Maker put them on the cover with the headline "Suede: The Best New Band in Britain", before they had released any single; "The Drowners" came out in May 1992 and reached number 49 in Britain. Their self-titled debut album (March 1993) entered at number one in the United Kingdom, sold more than a hundred thousand copies in its first week — the fastest-selling British debut album since "Welcome to the Pleasuredome" by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, a decade earlier — and won the Mercury Prize, whose £25,000 they donated to Cancer Research UK; it included "Animal Nitrate", "Metal Mickey" and "The Drowners". Brett Anderson defined himself in Melody Maker, in 1992, as "a bisexual man who has never had a homosexual experience", a line he later considered taken out of context, noting that he was referring to songwriting. Bernard Butler, co-author of the songs, left the band in 1994 during the recording of "Dog Man Star" after demanding the sacking of the producer Ed Buller; he had already recorded most of his guitars. He was replaced by Richard Oakes, then 17. "Coming Up" (1996) is their best-selling album internationally. The band split in 2003 and returned in 2010, and remains active. On the American name: the lounge singer Suzanne deBronkart, who had been recording as Suede beforehand, won the case; around 1995 the judge ruled in her favour and granted her the right to approve the name the British band would use in the United States, her lawyers handed them a list and the group chose The London Suede. David Bowie, The Smiths, Blur, Oasis and Pulp have their own profiles in this series. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from AllMusic, Wikipedia, New Statesman, Time Out and other coverage.