2022 Charity Shop Purchases #47 - Suede -The Singles
I was never much of a Suedehead or a fan of Britpop for that matter and Suede have only ever graced these pages once before.
In terms of popularity at the time they were probably seen as the "Best of the Rest" but trailing a long way behind Blur and Oasis.
I picked up their third album Coming Up shortly after it was released in 1996. I played it quite a bit at the time but I'm afraid it has not had an airing in years.In 2016 I picked up a copy of their second album Dog Man Star in a charity shop and it suffered the same fate.
They are probably more of a singles band so when I saw Singles a compilation from 2003 on Sony for 50p I thought it was worth a punt.
Interestingly (to me at least) the singles are not sequenced chronologically or even in terms of their chart success. I've gone for tracks 1 (1996 UK singles charts reached number 8) and track 2 (1993 - number 7) as my choices.
Now I may be accused of laziness and going for the easy option by posting the first two on the CD but these would have still been my choices has they appeared further down the list - honest.
Still I can't be accused of being a glory hunter given that I have ignored Stay Together and Trash which both peaked at number 3 - their highest chart position in the singles chart.
The booklet includes the lyrics for the songs which is pretty unusual for a Best Of/Singles compilation but very welcome.
Suede have just announced tour dates to support their new album, Autofiction, and having found my way into a pre-sale I've just bought my ticket this morning to see them in March. And that will be just a month shy of thirty years since I first saw them, in Brighton in '93. Looking back, it's hard not to be nostalgic about how exciting they seemed, and how important. We'd lost The Smiths. The Stone Roses appeared to be going into hiatus, and Britpop had yet to really get started... yet here were these fey, dramatic young men, fond of outrageous pronouncements, with guitar lines to die for. They achieved plenty, subsequently, but I often wonder how much more they might have achieved if Bernard had stuck around. Whatever, I'm looking forward to that gig in March very much, and the new album (released this Friday) too.
ReplyDeleteLyric sheets are always very welcome.
ReplyDeleteJust doing some catching up... That was a good buy, CC, 50p! I came to Suede late (wrong place, wrong time at the start) but have since had a real fondness for them (especially Brett - have you read his two autobiographies? Very worthwhile and interesting.) Amazed to hear the new single the other day which sounded so post-punk, reminiscent of the Cure, the Cult, Psychedelic Furs, Wah... all that kind of sound...I wondered at first, without knowing who it was, if it was something I'd missed from the '80s, so I was surprised (but pleasantly). Envious of Martin seeing them so early on, and having tickets for March!
ReplyDeleteSuede are an excellent band. I was lucky enough to see them quite early on in their career at a gig at the long-gone Glasgow Plaza.
ReplyDelete50p is a bargain buy, but I suggest you keep an eye out for 'Sci-Fi Lullabies' a compilation from the late 90s which brings together the various b-sides to the singles. It's well worth it as many of the b-sides, particularly early on, were as good as, if not superior to, the a-sides.
that was me above!!
ReplyDelete