What song are you listening to?

Loomis wrote:

What do you think of Bernard Butler's solo work, Laz? I haven't heard much of it myself but "Stay" is an amazing song.

Been listening to The Tears for the first time since 2005 - "Apollo 13" is great.

Haven't really got time for Butler, TBH. There's been a predictable formula of tiresome bombastic bluster to practically everything I've heard from him since Dog Man Star. IMO, he peaked with the first album and a half from Suede, plus those magnificent early Suede b-sides, then there was that one-off corker of a single with David McAlmont, the downside of which became the tiresome bombastic formula he's milked to death ever since. Suede proved they were still great without him, so Butler isn't an essential Suede component for me (beyond the first album and a half that is). The Tears album wasn't bad IMO (a couple of duff tracks, a bad lead single and a running order in slight need of adjustment aside), but I still think Brett's last two solo albums are superior. Brett was still stuck in his "I want to make a summery pop record with inferior lyrics" mode for both The Tears album and his first solo album. Here's how I'd rank everything I've heard from Suede/Anderson/Butler:

1. Suede
2. Dog Man Star
3. Coming Up
4. Head Music
5. Black Rainbows
6. Slow Attack
7. Here Come The Tears
8. Brett Anderson
9. A New Morning
10. Wilderness

Lazenby. wrote:

Brett was still stuck in his "I want to make a summery pop record with inferior lyrics" mode for both The Tears album and his first solo album.

Yep. He needs someone like Steve Osborne to effectively pull that off.

Where would you place Sci-Fi Lullabies in that list, Laz? I know it's just a B-Side compilation, but fuck is it strong.

Lazenby. wrote:

Haven't really got time for Butler, TBH. There's been a predictable formula of tiresome bombastic bluster to practically everything I've heard from him since Dog Man Star. IMO, he peaked with the first album and a half from Suede, plus those magnificent early Suede b-sides, then there was that one-off corker of a single with David McAlmont, the downside of which became the tiresome bombastic formula he's milked to death ever since. Suede proved they were still great without him, so Butler isn't an essential Suede component for me (beyond the first album and a half that is).

We certainly part ways on this point, Laz. I wouldn't say that Butler is essential - at least in the sense that Suede can be a very good band without him. But I do think he's pretty darn desirable. As I've said before, I think it's only with Butler onboard that Suede held out the promise of being a truly great band, although it would of course not be fair to credit Butler entirely for that period of early brilliance - Anderson, Gilbert and Osman were on top form as well, obviously.

While I think I've only heard about 70% (rough guess) of Suede's post-Butler output (when I say "output" I'm including everything, so not just A-sides and album tracks but also demos, B-sides and things like their stunning version of Noel Coward's "Poor Little Rich Girl"), and while most of what I've heard I've liked I struggle to think of even a single song that's the equal of the best songs of the Butler years. "Saturday Night", maybe, but I'm honestly stumped to cite any others.

Personally I've always preferred Saturday Night's B-side, This Time.

My rough top twenty Suede songs (in alphabetical order):

The Asphalt World
The Big Time
The Drowners
He's Dead
High Rising
Killing of a Flashboy
The Living Dead
Metal Mickey
My Dark Star
My Insatiable One
New Generation
Saturday Night (live version with Neil Tennant)
Sleeping Pills
Stay Together (long version, obviously)
Still Life (acoustic version as performed on Naked City by Anderson and Butler)
This Hollywood Life
To the Birds
We Are the Pigs
Whipsnade
The Wild Ones

Good list, though I've never been a big fan of New Generation. Would probably replace it with The Next Life, Breakdown, Daddy's Speeding or Everything Will Flow (if I had to choose one song from Head Music, it would be that. Very few pop songs better capture the sheer bliss of a good summer day).

Just me that's a fan of the big hit singles off of Coming Up, then?

No, they're very good. I'm especially fond of "Trash", an amazing comeback single. Also "Filmstar" - any song that boasts the line "an elegant sir in a terylene shirt" gets a thumbs-up from me. And of course "Saturday Night", a song I love and which also has great emotional resonance for me because of a relationship I was in at the time of its release - like The Smiths and possibly The Cure, Suede are one of those bands that soundtracked (and provided a sort of comfort blanket for) many of their fans' emotional rites of passage (playing a sort of direct agony uncle role, I suppose), whereas the likes of Oasis, another band I followed in the 1990s, were more the soundtrack of the party times - funnily enough, something like "The Asphalt World" is a better companion for periods of late teenage introspection than, say, "Roll With It".

However, it says much for Suede that even the highlights of Coming Up, a very good album, pale alongside the best of their early work (to my mind, anyway). It's like comparing the 1990s Brosnan era of Bond to the 1960s Connery era - the former is extremely enjoyable (again, to my mind - I'm sure that many here would disagree) but the latter is quite simply in a totally different league of quality, inspiration, freshness, iconic-ness (if that's a word) and classic status.

Apologies for holding what may seem to be a backward-looking, predictable and conservative pro-Butler position, but I was listening to some more of The Tears and am firmly of the view that even a B-side like "Song For the Migrant Worker" simply blows away anything I've ever heard from the post-Butler Suede. It isn't just that Butler's playing is so rich in virtuosity and emotion or that the music is so well-crafted and the production so atmsopheric and elegant - Anderson also seems to raise his game when Butler's around, both as a vocalist and a lyricist.

I'll have to start listening to Anderson's solo stuff, of which I've so far heard only a couple of songs. It may be that I'll also prefer solo Brett to post-Butler Suede.

Nicely put, Loomis.

Filmstar, propping up the bar, driving in a car, it looks so easy ... :) .

Loomis wrote:

My rough top twenty Suede songs (in alphabetical order):

The Asphalt World
The Big Time
The Drowners
He's Dead
High Rising
Killing of a Flashboy
The Living Dead
Metal Mickey
My Dark Star
My Insatiable One
New Generation
Saturday Night (live version with Neil Tennant)
Sleeping Pills
Stay Together (long version, obviously)
Still Life (acoustic version as performed on Naked City by Anderson and Butler)
This Hollywood Life
To the Birds
We Are the Pigs
Whipsnade
The Wild Ones

I'm a bit surprised thst Saturday Night is your only inclusion from post-Butler Suede, as I personally feel that post-Butler Suede bettered Saturday Night at least half a dozen times (Everything Will Flow, Down, She's In Fashion, By The Sea, The Chemistry Between Us, Indian Strings, Can't Get Enough). I'd easily include She's Not Dead, The Two Of Us or The Next Life over Whipsnade, This Hollywood Life, New Generation, We Are The Pigs or Saturday Night. IMO, 80% of the ballads are fine/great on Dog Man Star, but only around 10% of the rockers come anywhere near being as good as those on the debut album, hence my "album and a half" comment about Butler Suede. I also prefer Coming Up and Head Music over The Tears album, even if it's a bit of a close thing. The Tears album proved that you can't always recapture the past. I think Suede and Butler were done after Dog Man Star, and the only way would have been down after that had he stayed. The smartly direct move of Coming Up was the right thing at the right time, even if the album nowadays doesn't stand up as great.

I'll defend Whipsnade and We Are The Pigs. The former for being unique in the Suede catalogue as dub/2 tone-influenced, and one of the funkiest songs they ever recorded. We Are The Pigs has incredible swagger, a sleazy Mancini/PETER GUNN reference, Brett doing a Jason Voorhees "ch ch ch", though I'd say both songs are more than the some of their parts.

I will say, as someone born just two months before The Drowners was released (my 21st birthday's next Monday), I feel like a bit of a novice here. Especially next to Laz and Loomis for whom Suede played as part of the soundtrack for their teen years.

Forgive my ignorance.

Heh, next Monday's my 42nd ... I'll be exactly twice your age, Sharky :affraid: .

Don't we go through this every year?

Ah ... the curse of middle age, my memory's not what it was.

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Amazing how a song can evoke a memory.

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Mmmm. Clever bloke that Del, but a bit melodramatic.

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Erica Ambler wrote:

Suicide is generally the choice of the melodramatic. Great record though, and fab synth solo, too, possibly the earliest ever recorded. It was homemade and built out of an old valve TV set.

A modified clavioline right? Similar instrument to the one used a year later on The Tornados' Telstar.

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I thought this was your song?