Suede

I don't think anyone else has pointed this out, but "Faultlines" pretty much recycles the melody from Brett's solo song "Clowns" - easily his best tune of the last decade.

― Eyeball Kicks

I guess he just figured hardly anyone heard that song so he would get away with it. Not sure what I'd nominate as his best song of the last decade. Maybe the song he did with Pleasure? I really liked his third solo album Slow Attack, maybe something off that.

I only noticed those crackles on What Are You Not Telling Me. Have you either of you listened to it on CD? So far I've only heard a download and figured the quality wasn't perfect. I do have the CD but I'm not able to play it at the moment as I'm away from my collection.

Yeah, the crackles are on the CD. Tracks 8 & 10 especially. It was driving me crazy cos I was having some trouble with my speakers anyway, but then it was a minor issue in Suede forums and audiophile forums so at least my speakers were fine.

Which works! Those are the worst tracks.

No they're not. The weird thing about this record is that every song is kinda 8/10, without exception. Nothing above, nothing below.

Barriers is the worst and me think the album would be a huge letdown

LOVED Suede. Even really enjoyed the Tears record, but this one just hasn't hit for me yet. Seems relentlessly polite, unsurprising and middle-aged... like a British Gin Blossoms or something.

Enjoyed "It Starts and Ends With You" in the way one would enjoy an above average third single, but other than that... eh. I always lose interest halfway through.

Please tell me which song on here I should try listening to over and over to fix this problem I have. Wanna love it.

No they're not. The weird thing about this record is that every song is kinda 8/10, without exception. Nothing above, nothing below.

― Eyeball Kicks

Yeah I kind of agree with this, no weak tracks. Hit Me might be the only one I'd rate higher than a 9.

Please tell me which song on here I should try listening to over and over to fix this problem I have. Wanna love it.

― mr.raffles

Hit Me is my favourite song, it's the big pop moment. Maybe try Sometimes I Feel I'll Float Away for the big dramatic ballad. For me the second half is the strongest part, those four ballads at the end just seem to sound better everytime I play it.

Much thanks for the pointer, KP. Glad to see you step up, as it seems we have a fair bit in musicalcommon, but...

hmm

def still not grabbing (hitting?) me. maybe a phase I'm going through, but I'd still stand by what I said before. what I've been able to get through still seems a bit restrained and character-less. gonna put on the back-burner for awhile. hope its charms reveal themselves to me when I revisit.

Went to see them doing an acoustic set at Abbey Road Studio 3 the other night, and the ballads from the new album were even better in that form.

Re-listened to this earlier, 'Always' has grown on me a fuckload!

The 'Dog Man Star'/Floyd breakdown is one of their best moments

I've always kinda scorned the box-set business, but I got an email about this Suede vinyl set and I felt some weird old-man thrill at the thought of owning Head Music, New Morning and Sci-fi Lullabies on vinyl (plus the ones I've already got). Yeah, I'll give them £130.

If I could afford that right now, I would damn well be buying it, even if playing Head Music on vinyl isn't going to make 'Asbestos' sound any better.

"Bloodsports" is sounding better than ever right now.

listening to Dog Man Star again - Christ that record is nearly perfect

― not feeling those lighters (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Saturday, March 23, 2013 11:34 AM (10 months ago)

It really is

Suede are playing the whole of Dog Man Star on March 30 at the Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust, but I think tickets sold out pretty quickly.

Well I live in America and don't have a passport, so it's totally moot

OK, I'll tell them to cancel.

Lol Thx!

seconded

it would have been great if bernard had joined...

Yeah that would be cool, but I suppose since they're keeping on going, and looking to record another new album, it might be kind of awkward. I always feel sorry for Richard Oakes - he must really get sick of hearing about BB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eswQl-hcvU0

yeah, he's been in the band for 20y but he's always been and we always remain a substitute... tough.
but that's for he signed for, huh !
I remember an interview of bernard getting mad because they hired a puppet to replace him.
thing is, rihard didn't make things easier by playing the same guitars and having the same stage moves (at least for a while).

Yeah, exact same moves - shaking his hair, stomping his foot etc. Beautiful Ones was a great riff but other than that, though post-BB Suede have loads of great songs, I can't really think of any amazing guitar bits.

thinking of it, it must have been really weird/ridiculous, even for the others in the band. maybe brett should have told him to get his own style for his own sake !

and yeah, the songwriting and production became less structured around guitars after bernard.

I think Oakes has gone on record saying he's not particularly into guitar solos.

it's not really about guitar solos (although bernard had awesome ones) but the riffs and structure of the songs.

yeah, he's been in the band for 20y but he's always been and we always remain a substitute... tough.

― AlXTC from Paris, Wednesday, February 5, 2014 3:04 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Depends on the way you perceive it. I love Butler-era Suede as much anyone that loves Butler-era Suede, but I view that Coming Up era line-up as no less "Suede" than what came before. Of course Oakes was clearly influenced by Butler, it's why he got the job: it kinda helps when you have to perform the older material live. When it comes to the composition side of things, though, Oakes has his own melodic sense, which of course comes naturally from not being Bernard Butler.

Suede became less structured around guitars after Butler left not because of Oakes, but because of Neil Codling. If I recall, Oakes would rather have had Head Music be a guitar-based record, but Brett was keen to make a more electronic influenced record and wanted to involve Neil in the songwriting process more (with him being the keyboard player and all).

I agree with you mostly. After bernard left and considering richard had obviously less talent/vision than his predecessor, it was the best choice to try and go another direction...

anyway, with this thread and the 20th anniversary of DMS, I listened to it again and it is truely as great as ever... if not more ! I had shivers during "asphalt world" this morning.
even "black or blue" which I had never liked is enjoyable now. it has a debussy atmopshere. that and the ravel influence of the end of "still life" show an early 20s french aspect I had never noticed !
I also found interesting the fact that you find the brass and string parts at various moments during the album (from "pigs" to "black or "blue") before they all come back during the final of "still life".
the only song I don't find interesting or useful is "the power".

There was an interview with Brett just before DMS was released, and he said that "The Power" was the one song on DMS that was recorded after Bernard left, which is why it's lighter and breezier than anything else on the album. It's almost like a preview for "Coming Up", but they hadn't figured out what kind of band they were going to be yet post-Bernard.

I personally think Suede could have easily churned out Coming Up-like albums with that line-up until the end of time, but I think Brett started to change Suede's direction not because of Oakes' "relative lack of talent", but just because he wanted to try something different and had the resources to do so. Drugs, of course, also may have had something to do with it.

You've got to realise the circumstances with Butler and Oakes were very different: Butler was able to hone his craft and his guitar playing skills for a good while before Suede started to take off, whereas Oakes was basically forced into songwriting and playing to loads of people without having to "pay his dues" (for want of a better term). The fact that Oakes managed to come up with the music for 'Together' and 'Bentswood Boys' without having much of a background in composing music at that point is something I find very admirable, and there are plenty of Suede fans that still rate those tracks. So yeah, Oakes may not have been quite the "visionary" that Butler was, but he clearly had the talent to pull it off when he wanted to.

yeah, it's nice and all but I have never really liked it. and you clearly hear that bernard is not on it since the arrangements and guitar parts are way too simple. it should clearly have been left out as a b-side.

There was an interview with Brett just before DMS was released, and he said that "The Power" was the one song on DMS that was recorded after Bernard left, which is why it's lighter and breezier than anything else on the album. It's almost like a preview for "Coming Up", but they hadn't figured out what kind of band they were going to be yet post-Bernard.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Thursday, February 6, 2014 12:50 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hmm. I don't know about 'The Power' sounding like a preview for Coming Up... personally, I find 'The Power' breezier than anything from Coming Up. It's definitely too breezy for Dog Man Star, in my opinion. If anything, I find 'The Power' reminds me of stuff like 'Lost In TV' from A New Morning

xpost
oh absolutely, I'm not denying the qualities and merits of richard. he did what he could and it was very good already.
as for the change of direction, I mean it's because brett didn't have a counterpart as heavy as bernard that he could (or had to) change.

I remember their first public performance EVER with richard. it was for a radio session in Paris and they had just recruited him.
I was so jealous because he was roughly my age and I was such a bernard fan !

If 'The Power' had been left off Dog Man Star, I wouldn't have complained. Especially with them having songs like 'Killing Of A Flash Boy' lying around, but I suppose if 'Killing Of A Flash Boy' had made it into Dog Man Star it would have been mixed with the same amount of excessive reverb as the rest of the album, and it would have spoiled the track.

they could have added another track ("flashboy", "dark star"...) or just leave the album with one less track.
I guess they fellt like it could be a single and they needed more single material from the album...

Yeah... it definitely sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the album. I mean, even if I didn't know that Bernard wasn't on it and that it was recorded after he left, it has a very different feel from the rest of the material on there.

what were the singles from DMS : "pigs", "power" and "generation", right ?

oh and "wild ones" of course !

I saw Suede in 1997 and the setlist suggested that for the most part, they were keen to move on from the Butler era as much as they could reasonably get away with. https://www.songkick.com/images/1988626

In the Love & Poison book, it's mentioned how the band and Buller were keen to try and be contrary to what Butler would do and I guess Brett wanted to continue distancing themselves from the initial 'Classic Suede' sound, which resulted in 'Head Music' and disastrously with 'A New Morning' and 'Love The Way You Love', before admitting defeat. Anyone who's heard 'Bloodsports' can muster a guess as to what Brett might have been thinking would be the most appropriate sound to return with...

^ during the Coming Up sessions, that is

xxpost:

'We Are The Pigs', 'The Wild Ones' and 'New Generation'.

Apparently, 'The Power' was officially supposed to be the fourth single on May 1st 1995 but it was pulled. Saul Galpern had the band record some potential B-sides for 'The Power' in LA, and the band came up with 'Sam' and 'Have You Ever Been This Low?' for this purpose. According to the Love and Poison book, Brett was convinced that Galpern had no intention of ever releasing 'The Power' as a single, and wanted to see if the band could come up with a "potential A-side" track like 'Together' so he had something new to release as a single instead, and because neither 'Sam' or 'Have You Ever Been This Low?' were potential singles, Galpern pulled 'The Power' from release.

The Power does sound lighter than other stuff on DMS. However, even though it was finished after Bernard left, this involved a session guitarist recreating Bernard's parts from the demo, so it's likely it would have sounded similar even if he had stayed - i.e. the relative lightness was intended from the start.

I bought the Suede vinyl box set a few months ago and it comes with a (great) book containing interviews with the band (including Bernard) covering every single song. I will look up what they have to say about DMS later and post some of the best trivia.

You've got to realise the circumstances with Butler and Oakes were very different: Butler was able to hone his craft and his guitar playing skills for a good while before Suede started to take off, whereas Oakes was basically forced into songwriting and playing to loads of people without having to "pay his dues" (for want of a better term)

I guess I dislike the assumptions you're making about craft and instinct? The first two Suede albums are their best, but Anderson and Oakes coming up with "Trash," "Filmstar," "Saturday Night," and "Beautiful Ones" suggest Oakes had no need to hone any craft: he had plenty already. Unless we've got info that those credits were gestures of generosity (<i>Coming Up</i> does boast Anderson's first solo songwriting credits)?

Yeah, "The Power" is a nice break from all the heaviness around it on DMS, but at the same time I wouldn't miss it if it was dropped from the album altogether.