With the recent return of Suede and their new album ‘Bloodsports’ it seems timely that we remind ourselves of the true power of the last great British band. Now that's controversial in itself but fuck it, I'm sticking with it.
Off the back of a debut album which tore apart a stagnant music scene and added a bit of glam in the process, Suede proved themselves a svelte, dirty, sexual monster who harked back to the androgynous days of Ziggy Stardust yet still retained enough of punk's vitality to keep it fresh. ‘Animal Nitrate’, ‘Sleeping Pills’, ‘Metal Mickey’... all classics, all shiversome.
It was with their second album, ‘Dog Man Star’, however, that we saw what Suede were really capable of. Forever known as Bernard Butler's swansong, it has gained a reputation as a difficult masterpiece; which is shorthand for saying “we like it; we know it's really good... but we don't know why, and can we have ‘Animal Nitrate’ again?” For those of us who really listened though, we had an album which transfigured life and exposed everything you ever dreamed.
Such is the power of ‘Dog Man Star’ that even its semi-mythological status in a post-modern age can't take away the sheer ferocity of that first listen. ‘We are the Pigs’, ‘Heroine’, ‘New Generation’... anthems thinly veiling a dark secret; that of a band falling apart through drugs and creativity. A Velvet Underground for a new generation? You decide.
It was the boldness of creativity which removed this album from its predecessor. While ‘Suede’ was full of vitality and in-your-face anthems, there was rottenness at the core of ‘Dog Man Star’. The accompanying Derek Jarman films which the band took on tour with them broadcast this to a wider demographic. Yet it was inside that this darkness was most keenly felt.
‘Daddy's Speeding’, essentially an ode to James Dean, was as disconcerting as ‘Wild Ones’ was audacious in scope. However, it was the final triptych of songs which blew the Suede legend apart. ‘Black or Blue’, ‘The Asphalt World’ and then ‘Still Life’; to this day I get shivers as those final parts play out and the orchestra swells. 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicide' brought bang up to date, there really was nothing quite like it.
So yes, a love letter to an album which still stuns me to this day. I followed Suede after and still do but they never, ever came close to matching anything on this album. Do yourself a favour and dig it out of your record collection and play it once again. And for those who haven't heard it? You're in for a disturbing treat.
