As far as you and I are concerned, Suede changed the rules of pop music and everyone else just followed. When they formed around 1991, "independent" music was something to be sidelined not celebrated - bands released EPs and gazed at their feet and being successful didn't come into it. Now, three million album sales later (including 5 top Ten hits off the last album), Suede have redefined the "left-field"and called it mainstream. Without them I doubt whether bands like Oasis or Blur would existing quite the same way that they do today. Indeed, whilst they may have spawned/ spurned "Britpop" (horrible term), their cultural impact is of a far greater significance: they represent nothing more or less than the voice of disaffected youth.
Suede are Brett Anderson (voice), Richard Oakes (guitar), Mat Osman (bass), Simon Gilbert (drums) and Neil Codling (keyboards but it hasn't always been like this. Before that there was this: Anderson and Osman were brought up in Haywards Heath, some 40 miles away from London, remained friends for years and formed a band as long ago as 1989. They finally met up with their guitarist (until 1994) Bernard Butler after he answered an advert in Melody Maker and they met Gilbert -- selling tickets at London's ULU box office - and asked him to be their drummer. Later too, future Elastica singer Justine Frischmann joined as second guitarist and the line-up was complete. The Suede story had begun.
In the early days, Suede were a far cry from the band we now know them to be. They were hated to be frank, and venues, agents and record companies alike dismissed their "low-rent" glamour and sense of style as a thing of ennui. Their gigs were disastrous too, not on a performance level (every Suede show was a "performance") but on the audience reaction they garnered. When they recorded a single called "be My God/ Art" (with Mike Joyce on drums and now a priceless artefact) it all sounded very peculiar and only occasionally offered glimpses of the greatness to come.
At the start of 1992, however, something changed and the world caught up. (Justine had left by this point). Suede's live shows suddenly started to set pulses racing and this began to be translated into music press live coverage. In January, they appeared third on the bill to the terrible Fabulous at the NME "ON" night at the New Cross Venue and came to the attention of Nude Records. Three months later, after the capital had witnessed the most exhilarating scenes since the height of punk rock, and one month before the band's debut release "The Drowners" (on Nude), Suede were on the front cover of Melody Maker under the banner headline "The Best New Band In Britain". Suede were everywhere by this point and journalists began writing things like " the most audacious, mysterious, perverse, sexy, ironic, hilarious, cocky, melodramatic and downright mesmerising band you're ever likely to fall in love with" without so much as a tongue or a cheek in sight. Around this point, too, some of the most heartily hetero-centric (male) editors you could ever hope to meet were getting all shook up over Brett's behind and when Brett himself spanked his delicate derriere with a microphone on Top Of The Pops, television history was made - not least (since the Nude deal had not been finalised) because no other band had ever appeared on Top Of The Pops without a record contract.
Concurrently Suede singles "Metal Mickey" and "Animal Nitrate"went to 17 and 7 in the charts respectively and a lengthy stint of Suedemania ensued; by the time Suede got to play their home town again (London, to you) Brett had his shirt ripped off by over-enthusiastic fans. It was a far cry again indeed ... and this time there were tears.
In March 1993 Suede released their eponymously titled debut album and the floodgates opened. Already hailed as "the most eagerly awaited debut since "Never Mind The Bollocks by The Sex Pistols", the record did not disappoint, gathering ecstatic reviews in its wake. It contained at least one song ("Breakdown" if you like) that would rank high in the list of the best songs ever recorded. Others like "So Young" and "The Next Life" would become anthems of heroic alienation. The LP itself went straight to No 1 outselling its nearest rival (Depeche Mode) by four copies to one and became the fastest selling debut album since Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Welcome To The Pleasuredome" in 1984, turning gold on its second day of release. Later in the same year, and perhaps most poignantly, it also won the 1993 Mercury Music Prize.
Suede spent the rest of 1993 touring Europe, America and Japan, headlining the Glastonbury Festival as well as playing a series of sell-out dates throughout the UK. On February 14th 1994 (Valentine's Day) they released "Stay Together", a fully-formed, four-act, eight-minute, fantastically ostentatious classic that easily brought Singles of The Week accolades in the NME and Melody Maker. The NME commented that "luxuriating in the ambitious, dramatic, exhausting spell of this makes everything else sound like so much ephemera. Like most great things , it leaves you utterly silent." The record became Suede's biggest hit to date, peaking at No. 3.
Two months after this burst of activity, Suede began recording their second LP with Ed Buller at Master Rock. The result - "Dogmanstar" - is still considered by some to be the best album this decade and, indeed, the Guardian picked only this and three other records by 90s artists in their Top 100 records of all time. This hour-long (a double LP on vinyl) masterpiece brought extraordinary reviews (a 5/5 two page review in Q for a start) and it was easy to see why: "Introducing The Band" was nothing less than Sgt Pepper recorded in the Year "2000; the sublime "The Wild Ones" made The Smiths' "There Is A Light.."