Suede bounded onto the pop scene in the early 90s with their unique brand of Smiths-Bowie glam pop-rock and we were hooked. From the first chords of the single Animal Nitrate, then their smash hit debut album (then the fastest-selling debut album since The Sex Pistols) we were a couple of insatiable young Suede fans.
It didn’t last long, they soon lost Bernard Butler, their influential guitarist and main songwriter, but surprisingly that didn’t seem to faze them … they bounced back immediately with a cluster of top ten hits and a masterful pop album (Coming Up) that proved they didn’t need the moody Butler to flourish … but that didn’t last long either, they began to fall apart as alcohol, drugs, exhaustion and illness saw them stumbling and crashing, and eventually going their separate ways.
A decade later they were back, and the post-hiatus mature sober Suede knocked out four albums over the following ten years, culminating in 2022’s Autofiction.
The podcast is part nostalgia as we remember those early albums, and part discovery as we explore the newer stuff. Do those early ones still stand up 30 years later? Do the new one cut the mustard and meet the sky-high expectations set by those early masterpieces? You’ll need to listen to find out! (or just read below if you can’t be bothered).
In each podcast episode we talk through the artist’s history chronologically, picking our favourite tracks and ranking the albums as we go, so check that out if you want to know how we came to our decisions and why we picked the playlist tracks we did.
Our ranking and track picks are a compromise of our two different personal opinions, and of course we have to consider the Jeffrey Rulebook. It is also only a snapshot in time, so don’t take them too seriously! But do please comment below with your picks.
The Suede Jeffrey Podcast playlist is also available here on Deezer.
Our research included the documentary The Insatiable Ones, and the reading matter was Brett Anderson’s books Coal Black Mornings and Afternoon’s with the Blinds Drawn, also Suede: The Biography by David Barnett and Here They Come With Their Makeup On by Jane Savidge.
Origins
Brett Anderson (vocals) and Justine Frischmann (guitar) met at University in the late 1980s and along with Anderson’s childhood friend Mat Osman (bass), they formed the first version of the band that would become Suede. Recognising the need for a stronger lead musician, they advertised for a lead guitarist in the music press, specifying “no musos”. Bernard Butler applied, and we assume it was brilliance as a guitarist (and later as a songwriter) that persuaded them to overlook the fact that he was a total muso, the very thing they’d explicitly tried to avoid.
They played without a drummer for a while, using drum machines, then Justin Welch took up the role (who would go on to form Elastica with Justine Frischmann) but left after a few weeks, they subsequently auditioned Mike Joyce who would turn them down, feeling he’d do more harm than good as they would struggle to find their own identity with The Smiths legend on the drum stool, and so Simon Gilbert eventually joined as drummer.
Anderson and Frischmann had been in a relationship since the start, but after they broke up and she began dating Damon Albarn of Blur, tensions grew and it became increasingly difficult for the band to function. Eventually Anderson “kicked her out”, to quote Butler’s version of events, meaning we are left with the four-piece who record their first two albums:
- Brett Anderson – vocals
- Mat Osman – bass
- Bernard Butler – guitars
- Simon Gilbert – drums
Suede (1993)
Our ranking: Top!
Their jaw-dropping masterful debut album just about clings on to top spot despite the brilliance of their latest release Autofiction – but it’s a close run thing and could have gone either way.
It is an almost flawless gem, but it does feel a tad dated to today’s ears. This doesn’t spoil the ride because it’s an allowable weakness of any debut album that so perfectly captures its moment in time, and anyway, it adds to it’s charm.
Our picks: The Drowners and Animal Nitrate
1994: Dog Man Star
Our ranking: 4th
Their second album is a cracking follow-up to their wonderful debut. On its predecessor, Suede had been in-your-face with confident pop punch, but here they go deeper with songs that take their time to unfurl. It still has the hits, but now also has moody layers and awkward edges, as if Butler were deliberately trying to goad his bandmates with less accessible, less poppy, pieces.
Many people regard this as the band’s magnus opus, we like it but think it’s just a little too self-indulgent to be as enjoyable as the albums we rank above it – that said, all the albums we rank in the top 4 are a cut above the others.
Our picks: The Asphalt World and The Wild Ones
Line-up change
By the time Dog Man Star is released Bernard Butler has fallen out with everyone in the band and issued an ultimatum, demanding Ed Buller (the producer) is fired or he will walk. The band decide they’ve had enough of Butler and vote to keep Buller. They then recruited 17-year-old Richard Oakes to play the guitar on the subsequent tour.
Around the same time Neil Codling pops round to borrow a suit and never leaves and so a new writing team in born of Anderson, Oakes and Codling is born.
- Brett Anderson – vocals
- Mat Osman – bass
- Simon Gilbert – drums
- Richard Oakes – guitars
- Neil Codling – keyboards, guitars
1996: Coming Up
Our ranking: 3rd
Masterful pop from a band at the top of their game.
The brief was to create an album of ten hit singles, probably to show Bernard Butler they didn’t need him and could jolly well manage without his moody high-faulting nonsense. This was quite a brief, and they came very close to meeting it, but not quite … but with top-drawer pop masters like Filmstar, Saturday Night and Beautiful Ones they get pretty damn close – even the album “low point” of Starcrazy is a decent track with bundles of energy.
It still sounds current, possibly even better than it did on release.
Our picks: Beautiful Ones and By the Sea
1999: Head Music
Our ranking: 8th
The album they made at peak drug and alcohol use, and as keyboardist and co-songwriter Neil Codling was developing exhaustion-related illness.
It was described by bassist Mat Osman as being half a great album, and we agree with this. It has some very good high points of Suede-y pop, but doesn’t cohere as an album and as it lingers on, it drifts into a bit of a raggedy mess.
Our picks: Asbestos and Everything Will Flow
2002: A New Morning
Our ranking: 9th
A lost and baggy album that sounds like an exhausted band falling apart, probably because it was made by an exhausted band falling apart. It was an attempt to create a quiet, intricate and sensitive reaction to the previous album (Head Music) which was none of those things.
They tried to do something different, going in a more acoustic folky direction, and spent a lot of time trying to get it right, possibly too long, or perhaps not long enough, because ultimately it failed. The end result sounds formulaic, safe and uninteresting, words you would not expect to use about a Suede album.
They released See You In The Next Life … a couple of years later, a collection of acoustic and demo tracks, perhaps this was nearer the mark of what they wanted to achieve with A New Morning?
Our picks: Lost in TV and Astrogirl
Hiatus
Physically exhausted and creatively spent, they decided to take an indefinite break. This was partly feeling the band had run its course, with disappointing critical reviews of their most recent albums and waning sales and public interest – this was a time when most successful 90s bands were petering out – but also feeling the need to straighten out their lifestyles.
In 2010 they reformed for a one-off gig at the Royal Albert Hall in aid of Teenage Cancer Trust. This led to a couple more gigs, then a few festival dates, then a full-scale tour, then a trilogy of albums …
2013: Bloodsports
Our ranking: 6th
The first in the post-hiatus trilogy of albums, and the first album since the disappointing A New Morning. It is not a bad album, but on the whole it feels stylistically safe, perhaps understandable after such a lengthy break – the band were still getting used to being back together and most likely were working out what they had to offer the world and searching for their sound, and although we’d describe this album as a success, it lacks confidence and wobbles in places.
We had slight disagreement here in that Gordon felt it was a good strong return where John was less impressed, feeling it tailed off and lacked any standout tracks.
Our picks: Snowblind and Sometimes I Feel I’ll Float Away
2016: Night Thoughts
Our ranking: 5th
The most successful of the post-break trilogy in our view, a much stronger album than the ones either side of it. It is more interesting, perhaps even more “leftfield” (although not by much), and with stronger production giving it a neater sound.
A definite progression from Bloodsports, stylistically similar but with a darker moody haunting quality. There are quite a few strong tracks here, but as a whole it lacks the buzz of the pre-hiatus band. They sound mature and clever, more settled and sorted, but a band that hasn’t quite recovered the spark that made them so special in those crazy early days.
Our picks: Like Kids and I Don’t Know How to Reach You
2018: The Blue Hour
Our ranking: 7th
A well-named melancholy album, The Blue Hour is the final instalment in the trilogy of “leftfield” albums made after a decade of absence. For us it is the least successful of the three, with few stand-out moments and it feels overlong and muffled. Suede’s trademark echoey bouncy sound with droopy vocals are flattened down to the point where it barely sounds much like Suede any more.
The album works better as a whole, and that’s usually a good thing to say about an album, but in this case it feels more like a weakness than a strength because the second half is notably not as strong as the first – and just a little tip for anyone thinking of making their own album, the sound of a grumpy man burying a dead bird does not a song make.
One for the fans only, it’s unlikely anyone else would give this a spin compared to other albums.
Our picks: Wastelands and Life is Golden
They’re a funny lot when it comes to album covers, we neither like nor dislike most of them, but decided that The Blue House is probably just about our favourite:
2022: Autofiction
Our ranking: 2nd
A wonderful addition to their catalogue, this mature-sounding Suede is a confident band bang on its game, cock sure of how they want to sound and what they want to say.
An attempt at an “as live” album that is incredibly successful, it oozes energy coupled with the quality of songs to rival any Suede era.
Ten hit singles you say? Let’s do eleven …
Our picks: That Boy on the Stage and She Still Leads Me On
The Jeffrey Music ranking of Suede albums:
- Suede (1993)
- Autofiction (2022)
- Coming Up (1999)
- Dog Man Star (1994)
- Night Thoughts (2016)
- Bloodsports (2013)
- The Blue Hour (2018)
- Head Music (1999)
- A New Morning (2002)
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