Suede -- The First Album

Best Britpop album by a mile. "Animal Nitrate".

"So Young" or "Sleeping Pills". This album is like a corny homage to drugs by people who've never tried drugs. WHICH IS TO SAY, GREAT.

Or an album with bisexual references by someone who isn't bisexual...

I voted for "Breakdown" - "does your love only come in a Volvo?"

Quite hard, this. "Moving" and "Animal Lover" too shit to make this best Britpop album maybe. Not mad for "Animal Nitrate" either - too strident or boring or somethink. I think I will have to give "She's Not Dead" the thinnest edge over "So Young" and "Pantomime Horse", mainly for the salacious gossip surrounding it but also for the killer punchline and the fact that "Pantomime Horse" is an actionable steal of "That Joke Isn't Funny Any More".

(Anderson's voice is more annoying when they "rock out" I think.)

Brett Anderson is an angel.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2401/1821615110_30cf05e4bc.jpghttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2353/1848752502_218258522a.jpghttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2353/1848752502_218258522a.jpghttp://farm3.static.flickr.com/2401/1821615110_30cf05e4bc.jpg

YES FUCK YES I LOVE YOU BRETT ANDERSON.

Animal Nitrate performed live at the '93 Brit Awards.

FUCK YES.

I believe Alex would interject something about raising your standards here.

i'm not drunk.

This album would be even better if they'd included "To the Birds" on it - their best song, no?

Emily OTM. In fact, the album would be much, much better if several album tracks were switched out in favor of some of the early b-sides. Great singles, but otherwise very patchy.

Best Britpop album by a mile.

are you kidding?

this is one of the most overrated debut albums of the 90s, and was released by *the* most overrated britpop band, bar none. suede, basically, are the strokes of the '90s -- a band that completely ripped off its influences, sucked ass from the start and went downhill faster than an olympic bobsled team.

suede were fuckin terrible. end of discussion.

Sleeping Pills. I hated Suede then liked them then hated them. But now they are good.

most overrated britpop band, bar none

Surely Oasis were far more overrated, both at the time and now?

a band that completely ripped off its influences, sucked ass from the start and went downhill faster than an olympic bobsled team.

That describes Oasis to a tee. How many times have you heard the beginning of "Cigarettes & Alcohol" and not had the urge to sing "Get It On" by T.Rex?

I'm not saying that Anderson doesn't spend most of Suede's debut album trying to be a cross between Bowie and Morrissey, because he does. But there's something else there as well, which becomes more apparent on their second album, which is considerably better than their first.

*the* most overrated britpop band, bar none.

http://www.geocities.com/timessquare/hangar/1908/Pulp3.jpg

OMG this thread is making me realise that I actually like "britpop". I thought I just pretended I did because girls were into it (back then).

yeah both this album and Different Class are less than the sum of their parts this one is still 1000x better than that one.

The first disc of that Suede b-sides thing is quite fun too.

I found myself driving up I-5 listening to Supersonic the other day. And I liked it!

it's all about 'he's dead' and those other b-sides early on. not sure what to vote for here.

(fact 1 about the LBZC: they like britpop.)

Surely Oasis were far more overrated, both at the time and now?

i never said otherwise (and i like oasis' first two albums + early b-sides), though i think the Beatles-Oasis comparisons are lazy and inaccurate. and this is really about Suede, who are awful from start to finish. at least Oasis were interesting at *some* point...

Quitney OTMFM re: "He's Dead". 2nd Suede song I ever heard, fact fans.

Such a fine album. "So Young" for me.

will some-wha-hun give me gun

i still firmly believe that a version of SLEEPING PILLS more akin to the 92 goodier session than the buller-rock version off this, if released as a single would have gone to number one.

and this is really about Suede, who are awful from start to finish.

Well it's a bit hard to have a discussion about a Britpop band without mentioning other Britpop bands by way of comparison. My point is that despite being very overrated around the time of their debut album, Suede were far less overrated over the course of their whole career than Oasis [in particular], and also Blur and Pulp among others.
I was never really convinced by the Beatles-Oasis comparisions either. There's only one Beatles track where they sound anything remotely like Oasis, and that's "Rain". Because it's always seemed that Noel is all about early 70's rock. They were important around the time of "Live Forever", but once it became apparent where they were borrowing their riffs from I didn't feel it essential to listen to any more of their work.
Meanwhile with Suede, I think of the debut album as being like The Who's "My Generation". Neither album showed what the respective bands were really capable of, both contain great singles but also a fair few lousy tracks, and both were followed by better second albums.

(ok so it's more like su-hu-hum-wa-hun)

It's METAL MICKEY.

zeus sort of OTM

yeah metal mickey

yup

"Animal Nitrate", easily.

collected B-sides from "Suede" singles >>>>> "Suede"

innovation in indie = ripping off 70s records instead of 60s ones. that was some cutting edge shit in 93, lol.

yeah other genres of music never take sonic cues from the past: they develop out of nothing.

there's a difference between taking cues and being nothing but "cues".

i don't think suede were so bad tho, really. had their charms.

all that meathead shit after oasis like northern uproar, OCS, proper geeza, paul weller approved ladrock, that's what really sucked.

yeah that was a lot worse. i think suede were less directly imitative than, say, the strokes. or elastica. they were obviously working in a certain tradition -- i guess maybe i need to know more about their sources, but i really hate "glam"-era bowie. butler was a distinctive player. i suppose it gets complicated cos the smiths and bowie were both invoking past styles. such is postmodernity, i guess.

Metal Mickey. (Adam OTM re. Suede B-sides album - I think I listen to CD1 more than anything else they've done).

What is it about glam Bowie that you hate quitney?

mainly the production i think. especially on 'aladdin sane' 'diamond dogs', and the lyrics on all of them. (not interested in the art-school kabuki/burroughs/warhol mythology.) i used to like them and maybe will again, but atm they feel a bit panto.

Okay. I often say that Aladdin Sane is my favourite production on anything, but I guess you've definitely got to be in a certain mood for Bowie. I wasn't that into Hunky Dory for ages but the other weekend I got right back on it.

Those albums are all much less spotty than the first Suede one anyway I think.

"Aladdin Sane" is certainly my favourite glam-era Bowie album. And I think the reason for that is because it was mostly written while the Spiders were touring America, so Bowie didn't have the time to be pretentious. In that sense, "Dog Man Star" is similar. "Suede" is several years worth of Anderson indulging his pretentions, while the second album was written in much less time, and sounds far better for it. Anderson is a songwriter who will spend years writing an album if he's left on his own, but if you were to stick him in a room and say "write an album in six months" he'll come up with something good. That is his main similarity to Bowie - both need a Butler/Ronson/Eno partner to be kicking them up the arse and pushing them to get on with it. Without that influence you end up with "Diamond Dogs" and "Coming Up".

Bbbut 'Coming Up' was great!

Yes it is great, and so is "Diamond Dogs". The point I'm making is that although they are great albums, they are not as great as their direct predecessors. And CU and DD both signal a slide into rock cliches and lyrical laziness which continues with subsequent albums - particularly for Suede as Anderson begins recycling and rehashing ideas.

I think you've got it backwards. "Dog Man Star" (although great) is Bernard Butler jamming out his rock god fantasies in the form of nine-minute epics and "virtuoso" guitar playing. Brett Anderson managed to rein in that stuff on "Suede", and of course Butler wasn't around for "Coming Up" at which point Brett was all "right then, let's get back to writing pop songs".

So spending more time on an album leads to "lyrical laziness", which isn't a problem for albums produced under time pressure? I'm not seeing any logic there.

always loathed 'em.

but bits of "dog man star" are okay.

i've always felt like dog man star sort of dwarfs this album, good as it is

Voted "Pantomime Horse". The slow songs on this album are better than the more famous singles. Excellent album btw, even though Dom is insane in calling it the best Britpop album ever. :)

Spending more time doesn't necessarily make an album better, in fact it often results in an album that's worse. Saying to a band "here's six months to write and record an album" can make them focus on the imporant parts of their music. Of course a lot of bands can't do this, which is one of the reasons there are so many rubbish second albums. But Suede were better than that - their second album is a wider view of a world that was only sketched out on their debut. And the same applies to "Ziggy"/"Aladdin Sane" - in Bowie's own words AS was "Ziggy talking about being a star and hitting America".
The "lyrical laziness" comes into subsequent albums because on "Diamond Dogs" and "Coming Up", Bowie and Suede both had a lot more time. DD follows on from "Pin Ups", which is an album of cover versions, and CU was two years after DMS. But all the extra time got eaten up by things like drugs and other stresses. Instead they fall back on a simplified and exagerated versions of the themes from past albums. So Anderson writes about weird relationships and getting fucked up on drugs, while Bowie writes about a poorly thought out dystopian future version of the cities in Ziggy and AS.

"Animal Nitrate," but it could easily have been two or three others. OTM about the b-sides: "My Insatiable One" is my favorite Suede song, period.

it true that i like britpop, the only thing making look in a poll thread again. i'm sick of the polls on ILM.

my vote went to "Sleeping Pills"

jesus, people. what does it take to turn you on?

Does he sing in two octaves simultaneously at the end of Animal Nitrate, or does it just sound that way?

Do they not vot for The Drowners, or not admit to it?

er, vote.

i did!

butler was a distinctive player

I was actually listening to some of this last week, and yeah, I think this is key. If it were just Anderson doing Yelpy-Peter-Murphy over power chords or synths or something, it would be embarrassing (which seems like what actually happened, after Butler left?) -- but Butler's guitar stuff is really attention-grabbing and graceful, which both (a) pulls the spotlight off of Anderson, and (b) gets things exciting enough to kinda justify most of what Anderson is doing.

I mean, most of the reall cool, exciting hooks from this are actually guitar fills that Butler's doing while Anderson holds notes -- say, the chorus bit of "Animal Lover," or the way "Metal Mickey" doesn't let a SECOND go by between vocal phrases without some guitar fireworks to fill in the gap.

Brett Anderson + Bernard Butler = they should totally have called their band ABBB

most of the reall cool, exciting hooks from this are actually guitar fills

I think this is a common pattern - the singer being the "opiated fop" (Anderson's own words!), while the lead guitarist (usually) serves up the rock edge. Anderson/Butler, Bowie/Ronson, Mick/Keith, even Rod Stewart / Ronnie Wood, have this in common. Once the guitarist leaves the band, the singer is left to indulge his personal pretensions and the band doesn't rock like it used to.

Virtually everything you guys are saying could be applied to Richard Oakes' guitar playing on "Coming Up". Go listen to "Lazy" again and compare to what nabisco just wrote about "Metal Mickey".

I love "Coming Up" and, yes, Richard Oakes plays greatly. But then, he was a huge Suede fan and was picked because he was able to ape Butler's guitar style completely.

Do they not vot for The Drowners, or not admit to it?

i not only voted for it i linked the (awesomely sexy) video.

Apologies, and commendations regarding your choice.
(Video v.funny. I found it easier to enjoy their aesthetic when all I knew was songs/album artwork, as opposed to face-stroking and sternum bareing from mr. Anderson)

Does he sing in two octaves simultaneously at the end of Animal Nitrate, or does it just sound that way?

He did that quite a bit in general, I think. IIRC, he said in an interview at the time that he'd nicked that trick from Bowie, or something.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Virtually everything you guys are saying could be applied to Richard Oakes' guitar playing on "Coming Up".

otm - the riff on "The Beautiful Ones" is tops

I voted for The Drowners - personal memories tipped it that way. Sleeping Pills or Metal Mickey could easily have taken it.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Too bad too few people are familiar with the album tracks here. They are IMO superior to the singles - at least the slow and moody ones are.

pantomime horse is my 2nd favorite probably

otm - the riff on "The Beautiful Ones" is tops

Yes, and then some. Coming Up = still their best album.

Ned OTM.

no

Forgot to vote. But it would've gone to "Animal Nitrate" which I've always taken to be about something much more brutal than mere "sexual frustration." More like sexual exploitation or victimization. Kinda like the rest of the album. Not a pleasant ride, this, despite the slinky surface and Brett's remarkable, almost bluesy vocals in the coda of "Animal Nitrate." And the handclaps.

And greatest Britpop album ever? I wouldn't argue too strenuously against that.

P.S. This is one of about ten or so records that have been stolen from me.

"Coming Up" is excellent. I probably agree it is their best album although the debut comes close. "Dog Man Star" is terribly overrated.

Ned and Zeus are mad. The songs are less good, but more than that the guitars are trebled up beyond all reason and Brett's clearly been dared to only sing through his nose.

But those songs are excellent! "The Beautiful Ones" and "Saturday Night" are probably the two best Suede songs ever!

How easy is it to sing this:

"Oh, whatever makes her happy
on a Saturday night
and I say yes...
you look wonderful tonight!"

For years and years I've listened to 'So Young', got to the piano part in the middle section and thought "shit, I'm sure I've heard that before, it reminds me of something, what is it?"

This morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PldT2jq7ApM

Marecello Carlin on Suede

https://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2021/02/suede-suede.html

That's pretty good! But to say Suede is *nothing* like Bowie, or the Smiths? I mean, I guess, in the most literal sense. It is also pretty definitely "rock," though I get where they are coming from with that idea.

whoa didn’t know TPL is back, awesome!!

You'll have a lot of catching up to do. I last checked in on Monday and he's posted two new entries since then.

brilliant write-up of one of the greatest albums of all time

Happy 30th