Thing is, I've adored Suede from the first single, pretty much. Hell, from the first Melody Maker cover story, the all-too-perfect packaging, perhaps, of a certain aesthetic for the nineties which would become commonplace, be called Britpop, and now be pretty much as universally loathed and kicked against as alternative has over here in the States. Which is why it's quite fun to see Suede merrily ride the waves, survive all of this and still rock and roll into town.
This all said, their albums are so patchy. Suede I used to love through and through, but now it all seems like what it came from, namely being in college and aiming for decadence. Some good one-liners, though, and Bernard Butler did his rock thing pretty nicely. Dog Man Star is even more of a schizoid mess, half genius half go-nowhere do-nothing. Then Butler buggered off, Little Dick Oakes was recruited, touring touring, Neil Codling sidled in to pick up a coat and stayed, and behold! Through and through genius, finally.
Supposedly Nude Records head Saul Galpern had played T. Rex's Tanx album a lot at Mr. Anderson and company before the recording of Coming Up, which is probably why it sounds like exactly what it does, namely a brilliant glam-rock album, completely disconnected from time, and yet still something which could only be recorded these days and not then. Marc Bolan was his own sort of total god, of course, but he never wrote something with such a perfect, almost industrial level crunch like "Filmstar," as if Trent Reznor decided to be Bowie '72 instead of '78. And "Picnic on the Motorway" could almost be a Cocteau Twins ambient wash at points, if you let it hit you right (even more so live, I found out).
The one big complaint I know about the album from other fans is that supposedly Brett sounds too trebly. You know, never noticed that as being distinctly different from other albums, so I'm probably just deaf to these things. I do know that Codling's keyboards never totally seem to surface unless someone else points them out to me, but they're tucked in there with the romping "Lazy" and the string-soaked "She," courtesy of Massive Attack's string arranged Craig Armstrong, so there's actual drama there instead of a comfy bed of 'behold, we are art, love us.'
And the singles, the singles, the singles. "Trash" is instant loud-as-hell singalong and something which Damon Albarn could never write, which is one of many reasons why I think he stopped trying around that time in general. Scary thing is that "Beautiful Ones" is even better, and I will always lurve the way Brett kicks it in with an "Owah!" right before the main song. "Saturday Night" is apparently Elton John, but hey, I've got his greatest hits, so I'm not complaining.
Maybe a couple of slighter moments along the way -- "The Chemistry Between Us" seems to take forever -- but when "By the Sea" crashes into the final piano-led metadrama in the spotlight, frankly I for one am long gone from this sad life. There's a better place around.