When Suede released their eponymous 1993 debut, Glam fans took notice. No they didn’t. They leapt to their feet and dug through their closets for their six-inch platform Ziggy Stardust boots and moth-balled space age Brian Eno ultra-high collars before sprinting, or more accurately tripping and wobbling—have you ever tried to run in six-inch platform boots?—to loot the make-up counters of every store in London. Finally, they managed to lose (in six minutes flat!) the eighty pounds necessary to squeeze themselves into their old designed-for-skeletons glam attire. Depending on your point of view, it was a glorious moment or a bleeding horror show.
Actually, of course, none of this happened, because while Suede had that classic Glam sound, they didn’t necessarily look the part. They were, for the most part, Glam in mufti, and dressed, for the most part, in fashionable black, with the notable exception of vocalist Brett Anderson, who had that vintage Brian Ferry look—sans the 1940s tailored suits and jaded sophistication—down flat.
But none of this has anything to do with Suede, which ranks amongst the finest LPs of the Britpop era. By turns lush, romantic, low key, high strung, guitar heavy and flat-out metallic, the album’s songs are showcases for Anderson’s vocals, which tend towards the histrionic fabulous. His voice is the Glam glue that draws it all together—Bernard Butler’s guitar shapes the music, for sure, but it’s primarily Anderson’s arch delivery that sets the band squarely in the Great Glam Tradition.
“So Young” is as good as it gets. The song’s fresh melody captures the sound of youth, Anderson goes big time romantic, Butler’s piano adds flavor, and his guitar gives the song just enough muscle to keep it from dissolving into a lovely fey wisp. “Animal Nitrate” is a tougher beast boasting a killer chorus and Anderson singing, “Oh, it turns you on, on/Now he has gone/Oh, what turns you on, on?/Now your animal’s gone.” The ballad “She’s Not Dead” showcases Anderson’s ability to hit those dramatic high notes, while the band produces a Starman solar sound that fits Anderson’s voice like a tailored space suit.
“Moving” is a high-octane hard rocker with zoom guitar that has Anderson trying to keep up with the band’s V2 thrust, and like the self-explanatory “Metal Mickey” it shows off the band’s rough trade side. On the latter song Suede puts into action Bowie’s lines from “Rebel Rebel” (“You love bands when they’re playing hard/You want more and you want it fast”), but the song’s real triumph is its chorus, which is so perfectly catchy you could hang your shocking red Suzi Fossey Ziggy Stardust toupee on it.
On the Smiths-inspired “Animal Lover” Anderson literally mugs poor Morrissey for his vocal delivery, while Butler snatches the guitar from Johnny Marr’s hands and ups the volume knob. The relaxed “Pantomime Horse” brings Oasis to mind, that is until Butler’s power chords come in to remind us that Benjamin Franklin invented electricity primarily to ramp up the sound of his guitar.
Meanwhile, Anderson goes Richard Harris histrionic as he repeats the closing line “Have you ever tried it that way?” “The Drowners” also boasts a hard rock kick and a chorus so Glam it glitters, while “Sleeping Pills” occupies the haunted hours of no sleep, with Anderson pleading with his love not to take the valium that will draw her toward some more blissful place than slumber. But here’s the kicker—he’s also wondering if she’ll toss a few his way.
Glam will never die—it predates rock and roll and is as immortal as God, who if my inside sources are correct prefers the New York Dolls’ trash aesthetic to the “Ferry look”—he’d just as soon not dress so formally. But to get back to the point, so long as the camp, the flash, the spectacle, the fabulous and the outrageous peacock their glorious way among us, we have nothing to fear.
But you can be sure Glam is on the inside too—there are people walking down the street in flannel shirts and John Deere caps with the hearts of Bowie, Eno, Ferry, Bolan and all the rest beating like the wings of squawking pink monkey birds in their chests. Suede may not have looked the part, but they had the heart. And the heart, that beating glitter machine that pumps beauty into the world, is all that matters.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
