A Pocketful of Mumbles: Suede

If you have ever found yourself under the mesmerising spell of an artist or band; caught in a limbo world where no other music but that of said musicians is of any interest to you, where you can think of no better way to spend your time than pouring through as many interviews and trivia bites as you can feast your eyes on, flicking through youtube videos and absorbing all such information with as much ease as a newly purchased sponge, then I look to you for understanding and empathy; as this is exactly how I feel about Suede right now.

It hits you almost like a fever; unexpected and unexplainable in its approach, you just wake up one day and find that it has wrapped its merciless fingers around your whole body, and there is little you can do but ride the wave to its natural conclusion. As an obsessive with an obsession for music, this is a pattern that I have dealt with on several occasions before, however there is no telling for how long I will be inflicted with a disease which has seen my requirements for oxygen usurped by the need to hear Dog Man Star on indefinite repeat.

Anyone who has ridden the musical fixation rollercoaster can tell you that, despite its ability to overrule all rational thought, and overspill into various aspects of your life – it is not an unpleasant experience; in fact it is an absolutely fantastic feeling, of which every second is rich with appreciation. Music never sounds as good as when you are in the throes of irrational obsession, and you can wave goodbye to any difficult decisions regarding what to listen to on your ipod, or indeed; what to write about on your blog.

Perhaps at this point I should address the band over which I am so shamelessly gushing, and in doing so, acknowledge how unlikely and random a candidate they really are, however I struggle to know where to begin with Suede. Victims of a bizarre and unjust turn of events, whereby they were seemingly ousted from the Britpop movement for not complying to the laddish, boozing, fake-working-class checklist, despite the fact that they themselves kick-started the subgenre, but in turn expressed no desire to be associated with what it went on to embody. The hype surrounding Suede’s emergence in 1992 was truly extensive, with Melody Maker proudly adorning their front cover with the words “Suede: the best new band in Britain” and the following year, the Brit Awards shuffled around their schedule in order to afford them a last-minute slot at the ceremony as a direct response to pressures from the music press – all before an album had even been released. With so much hype surrounding them, it would have been easy to disappoint or fall victim to overzealous critics, however their first self-titled album was an enormous critical and commercial success subsequently earning them a Mercury Music Prize in 1993, and then leading on to record – what I believe to be their true masterpiece – Dog Man Star in 1994. Despite a string of increasingly commercially successful albums throughout the 1990s before disbanding in 2003, Suede are rarely remembered and seldom played in 2011. This is a great shame, as they are truly brilliant and arguably the best and most interesting band of the 1990s – an achievement for which I hold their astoundingly fascinating frontman mainly accountable.

One look at Brett Anderson’s erotically charged, androgynous stage persona will quickly answer questions regarding why they didn’t fit in well with the overtly laddish overtones of peers such as Liam Gallagher and Damon Alburn. Incredibly charismatic and instantly fascinating, Anderson can be seen strutting the stage with a stereotypical feminine haircut, big silver hoops through his ears and a black lace top tied loosely around his slim and hairless torso, singing lines such as 'I want the style of a woman, the kiss of a man'; he certainly cuts a striking and controversial image. However, this is most effective due to the way in which Anderson conducts his androgyny; with such self-assurance and masculine gusto, proudly stalking the stage in the knowledge that he is twice the man that any jean-wearing guy swigging beer at a football match could ever be. It is no wonder that he managed to ruffle a few feathers in a time where shell-suits reigned supreme, and American grunge was topping the charts. While Suede’s absence from the common consciousness of today is a shame in part, I am not sorry that their songs haven’t received The Universal or Wonderwall treatment, and that their music can be enjoyed without being tarnished by advertising campaigns or being strummed by incompetent guitar players in parks and festivals across the country.

I would recommend the album Dog Man Star to anyone, as it really is a five-star album that can be enjoyed perfectly from start to finish. While Suede may not have been flying the flag for British optimism, Anderson’s observations of suburbia are accurate and representative of a generation who came of age during the perilous 1980s, delivered via his impressive and instantly recognisable vocals. Introducing The Band, New Generation and Black or Blue are particularly good at summing up the feelings of British disillusionment that Britpop was soon to gloss over with the resounding opening chords of Blur’s Parklife.

So I will continue to ride out my obsession with all things Suede and Brett Anderson, even to the extent of finding myself shaving the hair on the right side of my head in an attempt to adopt some of the latter into some visual aspects of my life, as well as having him provide the audio soundtrack to my every move. Their performance of Animal Nitrate at the Brit Awards in 1993 is one that I keep going back to, and something that I suggest you check out if you are at all interested in what it is that has sparked such infatuation with the band and their music. I have included it below, but be warned; musical obsession is contagious.

Sometimes it is hard to deny that the old ways are the best. While this may be true of many things, there is a definite romanticism of a time gone by when - while it may or may not have been the case – there was a sense of quality, truth and simplistic beauty in the way people lived and the way that things were produced. This is certainly the way I feel about music, and while it may be a bit of a cliché to declare that the greatest albums were made prior to the turn of the 21^st century, if not long before, what I am mainly talking about here is the evolution of the physical (and digital) musical format and subsequent loss of album artwork.

The cover of a great album has shown itself to have the capacity to become as iconic as the music itself, with images such as The Dark Side of the Moon prism and the Abbey Road zebra crossing being forever etched on public conciseness – perhaps in these cases, even identifiable by those few who have not listened to the albums themselves. This is why I believe one of the most distressing things about the rise of the mp3 to be, aside from the ease at which we evade honouring an album by playing it in its entirety, that there is no longer the appreciation of album artwork.

Long have I fantasised about what it must have been like in the golden-age of vinyl, at which time you would leave your front door with enough money in your pocket to head down to the local music shop to purchase the latest album release by your favourite band. Racing down the aisles to the new release section and gripping that glorious physical 12 inch square piece of art in your hands for the first time, before racing home and devouring it with your eyes and ears as you pour over the sleeve and inserts within. Call me nostalgic, but that’s got to be better than a click of the mouse as £8.99 is removed from your bank account in exchange for an invisible musical concept.

While the ipod is a fantastic thing and fabulous in many ways, it is hard not to overlook the fact that all the wonderful artwork, new and old, is now being forgotten and overlooked thanks to the confides of a thumbnail image. Not only this, but it marks the death of the back cover (the qualities of which were often found in its ability to portray a brilliant photograph or image which never quite made the cut of the front). It is a real shame that album artwork isn’t getting the appreciation that it deserves these days, both in terms of the fantastic pieces that are still being produced, and also for those people who are currently discovering the wonderful music of the past fifty years, but yet not getting the whole sensory experience.

It might be worth arguing that at least with albums of the vinyl, and even CD eras, they have had their time and appreciation in larger formats, and the real crime is that brilliant new pieces are never escaping out of the confides of a 2.5 cm square. I was reminded of this most recently when I purchased Florence and The Machine’s album Lungs on vinyl, and was blown away by the richness and detail of an album cover which I already knew to be beautiful, but had never been able to appreciate it for its true splendour. Formatted in a gatefold, filled with stunning imagery and plentiful sleeve notes, it really takes a generous amount of time to take it all in - the only shame being that it won’t reach a wider audience.

As is the case with Lungs, it is great to see that artists and record companies are still producing vinyl copies of their albums, and this is due in part to the resurgence in popularity of old formats. I’m incredibly pleased that there is still a great passion and interest in these things, and that even those brought up in the digital age are keen to appreciate music as it was intended, and I really hope this trend continues.

Below I have included eight album covers; four pre-digital and four post, yet all equally brilliant and worthy of attention. Feel free to click on each of them to appreciate them in high resolution.