12. Suede The Drowners
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nWJQStqrfw Suede were lazily lumped in with Britpop, but in reality they were a completely different proposition to the guitar bands that followed in their wake, if Britpop was a continent then Suede were an island. In terms of the pastiche of the decade, yes, they clearly had the fingerprints of The Smiths all over their early records, but they spliced it into a wonderfully seedy glam sound of poetry, miles away from the ladrock that Britpop had. In poetic terms Brett Anderson was Lord Byron compared to Noel Gallaghers John Cooper Clark. Can you imagine Liam Gallagher singing We kiss in his room to a popular tune? Before they even released their debut single The Drowners, the Melody Maker had already splashed them on its front cover, proclaiming Suede as The best new band in Britain, which was confirmed in spades when The Drowners was unleashed. It was a tale of androgyny, sexual ambiguity and artisan intellectuality. It cheekily borrowed the melody of Starman by David Bowie for the chorus, reasoning that as Bowie himself had stolen that melody from Somewhere over the rainbow by Judy Garland, then it was a case of an eye for an eye. And in the words of Oscar Wilde Talent borrows, genius steals. What made The Drowners so important in the 90s was that it announced a songwriting partnership in Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler that was the best Britain had seen since Morrissey and Marr. Like The Smiths, they created their own world, and made it cool to be pale and interesting again. They would go on to release records that were equally fabulous, but heres where the story started.
Ed Nash
Contributor
What makes music fantastic? Star quality, amazing music, breathtaking lyrics and the ability to bring something new to the table, even if that means a new take on the classics. That's what I love to listen to and write about.
As well as writing for What Culture, I occasionally write a blog http://tedney.blogspot.co.uk and sometimes use Twitter, but sparingly @TedneyNash
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