All The Records I've Ever Owned

  Year Released: 1996 Label: Nude Year Bought: 2011 I know lots of people love this album, and it has got some great songs on it, but I just can't love it. It's too trebly, too thin, too cold. It kicks off with 'Trash', which is an absolutely brilliant tune with fantastic lyrics. Brett is at his absolute best here, with talk of "nowhere towns" and "cellophane sounds", and being the "litter on the breeze". I love it. But, alas we go from one of Suede's best songs to one of their worst. 'Filmstar' feels incredibly lazy. The riff is nothing, and as for the lyrics:  Filmstar propping up the bar driving in a car it looks so easy Filmstar propping up the bar driving in a car tonight These are Noel Gallagher-on-an-incredibly-bad-day lyrics.  I hate the riff, I hate the chorus, I hate the lyrics. I hate how shiny it is. It's lazy ... which is the title of the next song. This tune sees the first use on the album of the "here the...

Year Released: 1993 Label: Nude Year Bought: 2005 Although I was a massive Britpop fan growing up, I didn't really get into Suede until I was at university. My mind had always been fixed on Oasis and Blur, and then Radiohead (not Britpop, I know), and other than the big singles wasn't much across Anderson and Co. At uni I read John Harris's book on Britpop, and while it was pretty shocking on the Oasis stuff, the details about Suede intrigued me. I finally got their debut album in 2005 and didn't look back. What a record. Sleazy, sexy, overblown, 'Suede' has it all. Is there any more more glorious bit in 90s music than when the chorus kicks in on 'Animal Nitrate', and Bernard Butler's guitar line sounds like hips wiggling?  The big singles – 'Animal Nitrate', 'Metal Mickey', 'The Drowners' – still sound great today, and there's some other epic moments. 'Animal Lover' is pure glam, and 'Pantomime Horse' soun...

  Released: 1994 Label: Nude When I bought: sometime around 2010/2011 Poor old Suede. They did all the Britpop stuff first didn't they, but they just don't get the credit. Mercury Music Prize win, failing to break America, lead singer breaking up with Justine Frischmann. They did it all first. And, as their second album shows, even Be Here Now. Yep, that's what Dog Man Star is. A ridiculous, overblown, self-indulgent record that is essentially egos run amok. Every idea is taken to the nth degree, every song has layers upon layers upon layers, and the lyrics are full of so much melodrama it would make Morrissey wince. But my god, it absolutely works. 'Introducing The Band' kicks things off with huge sounding drums, while it takes Brett Anderson mere minutes to start singing about "the tears of suburbia". 'We Are The Pigs' gets things going properly, and in comes that epic Bernard Butler guitar tone that helped make Suede's debut album such a glo...