Suede to get us over Hump Day. In session for Bernard Lenoir, or better known as The Black Sessions for Radio France International on January 28, 1993.
1993 was a watershed year for the band. Voted Best Band In Britain in 1992, this session comes the following year, and a little over a month before the release of their much-anticipated, and milestone debut album, Suede in March of 1993, and days away from the release of their most successful single, Animal Nitrate. They were enjoying considerable attention, being called the “most written about band in Britain”, not the least because of singer Brett Anderson‘s charged sexuality and androgynous looks. It was the stuff of gossip columns and compounded an already wide-ranging popularity.
This session captures them at a high point. With two highly successful singles and a growing following and positive press, they were considered one of the premier bands of the Brit-Pop genre and helped foster it into international acclaim, eventually ranking them alongside Oasis, Blur and Pulp as the leading proponents of the genre.
But like most bands, it wasn’t able to sustain all the excitement. And by the following year, friction would develop and founding member and guitarist Bernard Butler quit the band amid creative differences. There was a pretty steady change of band members as well as a shift in musical direction. And even though they were still cranking out hits all the way until their fifth album, A New Morning, which proved to be a critical and commercial disaster, they had enjoyed a long run. But it was that last album that proved the clincher and Suede called it a day in 2003. But the end didn’t stay for long, and Suede reformed in 2010 for a series of reunion gigs. The reunion stuck, and it resulted in the release of two more albums, including Night Thoughts, their seventh release in 2016 to even more critical and commercial acclaim since their initial success in 1992.
Goes to show you; all they needed was a vacation to recharge their batteries.
If you’ve come to know Suede by this latest incarnation, have a listen to this earlier version of the band – when things were coming together and Britpop was considered new.
Play loud.
