2. Suede
'Well he writes the line wrote down my spine/It says "Oh do you believe in love there?"' Mistakenly called 'Nude' by some fans (it was actually the name of the record company, displayed prominently on the disc), the self-titled debut album demonstrates that Suede were a strikingly mature band, capable of real depth and pathos. The singles are rightly lauded, but it's the longer, more internal songs that reveal the band's emotional scope and musical ambition, which were considerable. The album opens with 'So Young' and then 'Animal Nitrate', both singles, although surprisingly different in tone and style. 'Animal Nitrate' is the provocative, bitchy Suede, the Suede that appeared on the cover of Melody Maker flicking the V at grunge. Unashamedly gay-sounding (even if Brett Anderson proclaimed himself a bisexual who hadn't had a homosexual experience) and with a churning Butler guitar solo, it's probably the song that best defines Suede's overall attitude and approach, even if 'So Young' is more characteristic of this particular album. Forlorn and autumnal, it might lack rock thrills (and as a single it was a damp squib), but it's an appropriate album opener for pointing the way to tracks like 'Pantomime Horse' and 'Sleeping Pills' that cut to the heart of their early style. Detractors accused Suede of alternately being Smiths copyists. It's true that Anderson's lyrics abound with exhausted lovers and forgotten suicides, but his Estuary croon lifts them into the realm of the quasi-mystical, turning the suburban relapse of 'Breakdown' into a magical realist point of transcendence. Butler is equally important, and has a harder task- he's telling the same stories without a voice or words. His guitar work, which never shies from a wrong turn or a dead end, conveys the excess and waste of youth more eloquently than his idol Johnny Marr. Butler was undoubtedly the greatest talent to emerge on the album, but crucially, he never steals the limelight from Brett- he shares it, warily complementing his sparring partner. If there is a fault, it's that none of this is immediately accessible. That it became the fastest-selling debut album of the time probably has more to do with the paucity of musical options on offer (shoegaze and baggy, listlessly vying for a tiny audience) than any genuine immediacy. On a first listen, anyone expecting ten Animal Nitrates or Drowners will be disappointed. Give it time to breathe, though, and it makes complete sense. Most bands have to wait years before they make an album as dense as this. Because Suede nailed it first time, the climb ahead of them was so much steeper.