1994: Suede - Dog Man Star

I've seen Brett Anderson doing his thing up on stage twice, both times in front of tens of thousands of people. The first time was on the main stage at Benicassim in 2006 as frontman of the short-lived band The Tears, his reunion with erstwhile Suede partner Bernard Butler. The second time was as frontman of the reformed Suede headlining Latitude in 2011. I'd been told (by a big fan of the band, which I myself am not) that the reformed Suede was a joy to behold, would blow my cynicism away, and it was to an extent. They rocked it. The Tears, on the other hand, did not, and I heard an awful lot of people,  as they ploughed through their one - mediocre - album, shouting "Play some fuckin' Suede". Brett Anderson, with his rock star moves, seemed defiantly ridiculous. He might have seemed just so ridiculous fronting Suede, except I allowed myself to buy into the idea of Brett Anderson rock star  because I liked a lot of the songs enough, and it was great.

Suede were the first of those bands, those major bands of the 90s, who really broke through, even to kids like me without much of a music taste in 1992/3. I knew about them and knew they were the great hope of British music. They were the Paul Gascoigne of the whole thing, if you will, while Blur and Oasis were the Alan Shearer and David Beckham ... if you will. Brett Anderson, to me, is one of the most nonsensical characters in music, buzzing with insecurity and self-importance and utterly undisguised envy and weak bravado. But, you know, he's done all right for himself. Despite the fact that the Tears were so hopeless,  most people, including me, think that Bernard Butler supplied Anderson with a magic he would never recapture.

Butler was kicked out of the band at the end of sessions for their second album 'Dog Man Star'. Suede have since (including a large hiatus) completed four albums without him, the first of which 'Coming Up' was actually very successful, but they have really not been the same band since. They're the perfect example of the band that starts to sound like a covers band of themselves, where the magic is intangibly (or, actually, sometimes, fairly tangibly) lost. It's not always disastrous, not exactly, it can be fine, but it's all too clean, too self-conscious. Think Wilco's 'Wilco', Spiritualized's 'Let it Come Down', Furries' 'Hey Venus', Belle and Sebastian's 'The Life Pursuit'.

What Suede lost was obvious. They lost their great musical talent - no one has ever denied that. Butler has had success in numerous fields since then, and, actually, if you ask me who I'd rather see reform to make a new album, it would be McAlmont and Butler, not Anderson and Butler.

Although Anderson and Butler really did work well for a while, there's no denying that. Now, and at the time, their eponymous debut and 'Dog Man Star' were both considered classics - this seedy, narcotic Londony take on the Smiths and Bowie. I never know with Brett Anderson if he's in on any of the joke - when he sings " you're tie-king me eau-va" on The Drowners, sure, he knows he's pronouncing the words oddly and doing that on purpose, but he does he really know how silly it is, that the magic comes from the silliness above all? He probably does, but i'm never quite sure. Still, what a song ...

Their best songs, though, for me, are on Dog Man Star, a massive, sweeping, elegant, dangerous album, and the album that suggests that if they'd stuck together, well, they really could have been something. It's the one act of Suede I still hold in the highest regard - I like the first album, I really don't rate anything post-Butler, I just think it's weak, plinky plonky, trite and boring. I think Dog Man Star's great. It's not like it's been on my stere-eau by the nuclear maotorway for the last twenty years, but, you know, I like it.

The one I always loved was The Wild Ones - really beautiful.  I remember it was on the same Top of the Pops as End of a Century - to be honest, from that point on, Suede were a defeated enemy and I was all about Blur. Dog Man Star was not a massive commercial success and no wonder Anderson was seething. He thought he was creating a definitive masterpiece and who stole his thunder? The dick who stole his girlfriend.

It's interesting how the three, or let's say four, guitar heroes of English indie all had their alliances with charismatic frontmen severed and how all fared afterwards. Morrissey and Marr, Brown and Squire, Anderson and  Butler, Albarn and Coxon - how interestingly similar all those relationships are, with the Albarn/Coxon one being slightly different in that it was always known that Albarn was the main musical talent and would be fine one his own, whereas Morrissey, Brown and Anderson actually all did a bit better without their foil than many thought they would.

Anyway, I'm rambling because I'm watching Spain-Chile (what of the severed alliance of Xavi-Iniesta?) - Dog Man Star is an album out of time, forgotten in a sense, though enough people comment on its forgotten state so as to make it unforgotten. It's pretty brilliant, rather like The Bends; some of the best songs are the non-singles, it's instantly evocative and without filler.

It's born of conflict, tension, drama, decadence and ambition, and I've never been in a recording studio but it is fascinating to consider the elements that create magic and those that don't. A lot of the mythology of rock'n'roll seems to have a large grain of truth to it.

Anyway, here's a compilation of the works of the members of Suede - sorry, I do love a bit of McAlmont and Butler, I really do.

Introducing the Band
The Wild Ones
The Drowners
Animal Nitrate
Yes - McAlmont and Butler
New Generation
Metal Mickey
Stay Together
Refugees - The Tears
I'm Not Alone - Bernard Butler
So Young
You Do - McAlmont and Butler
Stay - Bernard Butler
My Insatiable One
Black or Blue
Trash
Bring it Back - McAlmont and Butler
It Starts and Ends With You