4. Coming Up
'But we're trash, you and me/We're the litter on the breeze' Suede might have spearheaded Britpop in its first thrust, but by 1996 they had been superseded by the laddish triumphalism of Blur and particularly Oasis. The scene had gone overground, dominating the charts and setting the cultural pace for the rest of British society. Politicians courted Messrs Albarn and Gallagher, while Jarvis Cocker became a folk hero after baring his arse during Michael Jackson's 1996 Brit Awards appearance. What had once seemed like the invention of an impatient music press was now a credible commercial force, and Coming Up, Suede's third album, was an effort to adjust to that new reality. It was a success, at a high cost. Songs like 'Trash' and 'Beautiful Ones' are now archetypally Suede, but in 1996 they represented a palpable change of direction. The addition of Richard Oakes on guitar and Neil Codling on keyboards meant that the sound was bigger but also brasher, stringently focused on anything pop and unencumbered by guitar wankery. This change was unavoidable- Oakes was no more than a gifted copyist- but also pretty sensible, given that the other big bands of the era were singles acts. Those tracks plucked from the album have a tacky, plasticky feel reminiscent of Pulp, but actually not a million miles away from more conventional pop fare- say, The Spice Girls? The new approach worked, with all five (five!) singles reaching the top ten. This success held Suede in good stead for the next five years and probably accounts for why any of us are still talking about them, even if we aren't particularly talking about this album. Because as a sustained piece of music, Coming Up doesn't really work. The singles are irresistible and justify a purchase, but aside from 'Picnic by the Motorway' (classic Suede, lovely but sinister) there's a lot of filler here, which in classic filler style isn't necessarily bad, just eminently skippable. There's also a problem with the sequencing- it's a ridiculously frontloaded album, with 'Lazy' following 'Filmstar' following 'Trash' (from here onwards all Suede's lead-off singles also head the albums). As an opening salvo, it's unbeatable, but once it's done we get the maudlin 'By the Sea' and the grating 'She', which is, for some reason, Brett's attempt at a Bond theme. Suede were always a commercial proposition, but they at least had the chops to create a strong album. Here, the energy has been diverted entirely to the singles, leaving everything else creatively malnourished. What we have in Coming Up is a brilliant EP, a passable greatest hits compilation, but not much of a long player. It gave Suede a new lease of life- but also very little to build on.