Suede is a recent new love for me, and it is either because I'm becoming older, and therefore my ears are opening up, or I have bad taste. I'll let my readers debate on that, but when I first heard Suede in the 1990s, I found them to be pretentious and too much of an imitation of various glam bands, and also, I suspected any group that was so good looking. In other words, I criticize Suede for being too surface-like, when in fact my attitude toward them was precisely the same disease. My thoughts on them were equally surface-like. It was a happenstance series of moments when I purchased their third album "Coming Up," and reading Brett Anderson, their singers' moving memoir "Coal Black Mornings" at the same time. Being a completist, I also purchase the three-LP vinyl discs compilation of their b-sides "Sci-Fi Lullabies."
First of all, the opening song to this compilation "My Insatiable One" is classic. Why it is not on their first album is a mystery to me. Which comes to the fact, that all the b-sides are almost better than the final chosen songs for the first "Suede" album. B-sides, by their nature, are usually throw-away songs, or little experiments on the tail end of a recording session. Clearly Suede see their b-sides as important recordings. A three album disc set seems obsessive, but "Sci-Fi Lullabies" is a very much release by these London artists. For the music historian, Suede had two parts. The first part is the Bernard Butler years, which didn't last long, but his importance is acutely felt in the first two albums, as well as a large handful of songs here. Butler is not only the co-writer of the early Suede songs, along with Anderson, but also a magnificent guitarist. He's a combination of Johnny Marr and Mick Ronson, and he serves Suede in the same manner as those two fantastic guitarists and arrangers. When Butler left or got thrown out of Suede, one would think that's it. Brett and company found another guitarist and co-writer, and an additional guitarist/keyboard player and they became even more popular. What Butler brought to Suede is an orchestrated guitar sound that was textured and melodic, with a noisy tinge as well. This guy is a musician's musician. There is a nerdy, obsessive side to his playing that is very aggressive, but equally aware that he's part of the foursome (at the time).
Anderson struck me as a lyricist who very much admires Bowie and JG Ballard. With respect to Bowie, his "Man Who Sold The World" which strikes me as the framework for Suede, but I'm also amused and fascinated that Brett Anderson was listening to Robert Wyatt's "Rock Bottom" at the time of recording their first album. Anderson is an 'observation' writer. He has a good ear and language in describing a landscape in the U.K. that was lower class, yet had some vision of a future that is part science fiction, but based on the economic world of failure and misery. Its songs are about youth, but not as bright young things, but more like the victims of their class and economic world. It's romantic because the characters in the songs have no other choice. It's either that or pure misery, which even with its romantic motif, is still a miserable existence. Suede is the poets and voice for this underclass.
Once Butler left, he was replaced by Richard Oakes, who much admires the previous guitarist's work in Suede. And on top of that, he is an excellent songwriter. Him and Neil Codling, who happens to be the cousin to their drummer Simon Gilbert, is also a strong melodist. Mat Osman is also a very melodic bassist, and he adds a lot to their sound. The latter Suede is punchier and perhaps focused in their music. There is not a significant difference between the two versions of the band, due I suspect to the vision of Anderson. There is a Jacques Brel approach to the seedy world that he shares with the legend, and he takes on that role very well. "Killing of a Flash Boy" and "Europe Is Our Playground" are such songs that are subjective, but has a journalistic skill in telling the narrative. Suede is worth the effort to drop my objections and accept them for what they are: an outstanding band of great worth.
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