Coming up (Remastered) [Deluxe Edition]

The story of Suede splits well into two acts: the first version of the band, with guitarist Bernard Butler, and the second version of the band, with Butler gone and replaced by Richard Oakes, as well as keyboardist Neil Codling. The first version of the band released two albums, the crackling, sexually aggressive debut and the grotesque, brilliant, and dark follow-up, Dog Man Star, made as Butler and the rest of the band were pulling apart. The original version of the band fed on the tension between its two songwriters, Butler and vocalist Brett Anderson, and the records it made were harrowing and complex, both musically and lyrically.

When the band reconstituted after its messy split with its guitarist, Anderson was in no mood to make another Dog Man Star. It's a difficult kind of record to follow up-- to come back with something that aimed for the same epic sweep and catharsis of that album would have ensured failure. Instead, when Anderson began to write with his new partners, he sought to change almost everything. The new Suede would be a very different band from its predecessor, even though it had the same singer and rhythm section. The new pieces had a lot to say about that. Oakes and Codling immediately began writing new material for the band, and Anderson found that what they were writing fit well with the new direction he hoped to take the band in.

It wasn't a clean stylistic break, necessarily. Oakes had found his way into the band by sending a demo tape to the Suede fan club; when Anderson overheard drummer Simon Gilbert listening to it, he thought it was an old Butler demo, and the 17-year-old guitarist vaulted to front of the long line of people auditioning to be Suede's newest member. Codling came to the band more conventionally: He was Gilbert's cousin, and the new songs they'd been working on immediately after Oakes joined required keyboards, so he was hired. This new three-way creative partnership was considerably less volatile than the Anderson/Butler pair, and partly as a result, the music lost its dark edge.

Back in the band's early days, Suede were heralded as one of the banner acts of the UK music media's new Britpop obsession-- a fact that chagrined and even disgusted Anderson-- and Dog Man Star had in some respects been Anderson's attempt to show that Suede were something distinct from Britpop. The band's next album, Coming Up, released in 1996, feels somewhat like Suede jumping back on board the movement it helped launch. At the very least, it finds the band returning to its glam-rock roots, and it's about the most day-glo rock record this side of Ziggy Stardust, with an intentionally garish Peter Saville sleeve to match. It vaulted the band back to massive commercial success in the UK, selling over a million and a half copies and spawning five top 10 singles.

Listening today, the album's biggest shortcoming is its lack of low-end. Producer Ed Buller chose to highlight the vocals, guitar, and synths over the band's formidable rhythm section, a decision that unfortunately leaves the album's roughly 50/50 mix of bouncy pop songs and melancholy ballads sounding a little thin. Coming Up is still a very good album, though. Anderson's lyrics are considerably more superficial and humorous than they had been in the past; this would eventually become a problem, but on uptempo, fluorescent rock songs like "Beautiful Ones" and "Trash" it works because these songs are just so damned catchy. And there is a lot of depth in the ballads. "By the Sea", actually written by Anderson during the Butler years, is simply beautiful and heartbreaking, while "Saturday Night" works perfectly as a long exhalation at the end of the album's long and disorienting party.

The album is reissued with all of its contemporary B-sides, minus the Neil Codling demo "Digging a Hole", which is omitted without explanation. This is very important, because there's a whole second album on disc two that's easily as good as Coming Up itself. The epic slash of "Every Monday Morning Comes", the relentless dub stomp of "WSD", the grinding descent into debauchery of "Europe Is Our Playground", the exhilarating pop rush of "Sound of the Streets" and Anderson's baritone-voiced lead on the scuzzy, Dog Man Star-ish rock song "Have You Ever Been This Low?" are all essential to understanding just how versatile this band was at this point in its career, and that's just a sampling of the 19 B-sides included on this set. This is an important theme of this reissue campaign, and one that will become even more important later.

The huge success of Coming Up left Suede in a position to do basically anything they wanted with their next album, but it took three years for the band to put together the follow-up. Codling was at times bed-ridden with chronic fatigue syndrome after the grueling 18-month world tour in support of Coming Up, and Anderson had fallen deeper into drug addiction, especially crack. Bassist Mat Osman, who along with Simon Gilbert has always been a source of stability and reason for the band, recalls Anderson's drug buddies hanging around a lot during the sessions and generally ruining the atmosphere. The UK music press interpreted the long wait between albums as a sign that things were going wrong and that the next LP might be another Dog Man Star. When Head Music finally came out in 1999, anticipation was so high in Britain that Virgin Megastores all over the country changed their name to Head Music for a day on the release date.

The album wasn't another Dog Man Star, but it was considerably darker and thornier than Coming Up. The band worked with producer Steve Osbourne to get a much heavier, more groove-oriented sound, and Codling's synths moved to the center of the sound. Head Music is neon to Coming Up's day-glo, and it's aged well sonically-- it is easily the band's most underappreciated album. Part of the reason for that is Anderson's lyrics, which on certain songs were simply terrible. "Savoir Faire"'s notorious opening couplet, "She live in a house/ She stupid as a mouse," is the worst offender, but the slide toward superficiality that began on Coming Up accelerated here, with Anderson sounding more like a bored observer than participant in the nightlife he sings about.

Most of it sounds splendid, though. "She's in Fashion" is a simply effervescent and weightless pop song; the mysterious orchestral swirl of "Indian Strings" is captivating; "Hi-Fi" has a chunky electro bounce that still sounds modern; and the slinking pop noir of "Asbestos" easily forgives the sometimes clunky lyrics. The band's attempts at stomping, punky rock on "Can't Get Enough" and "Elephant Man" might have been better replaced by breezy fluid B-sides "Leaving" and "Let Go", though, and Anderson's solo acoustic stab at political commentary on "Crack in the Union Jack" is expendable. Perhaps reflecting the band's unsettled state at the time, the period B-sides overall aren't the world-beaters of the past, and they're spread across different producers (here again, a Codling-sung B-side, "Weight of the World", has been left off).

Suede's final album, A New Morning, is almost an afterthought in the context of the band's whole career. In his liner notes, Anderson wonders whether it even should have been made and imagines a much different tracklist from what actually went on the album. The disc of B-sides here is very important, because it's easily better than the proper LP-- it's the reason I'm rating this reissue higher than I did the album on its original release. The band was coming apart as it made the record. Codling had left due to his illness, though he still contributed some songwriting; he was replaced by Alex Lee, the former keyboardist for good-but-forgotten Britpoppers Strangelove. For his part, Anderson had kicked drugs and isolated himself to write songs.

The record that came of all this is Suede's sunniest and most organic, but also its least substantial. On "Lonely Girls", Anderson outright repeats himself-- the song is a list of girls, coupled briefly with something that each of them does, which makes it a virtual re-write of the old B-side "Young Men". His voice was also worn by years of abuse, and he sounded a little ragged singing the otherwise buoyant hooks of "Obsessions" and "Positivity", though it's hard to begrudge him the brighter outlook he displays on those songs. Listening to all the music here, though, it's easy to hear how, by bringing songs such as the stately ballad "Simon", the strangely haunting acoustic singalong "Campfire Song", and the unusual, slightly psychedelic "Instant Sunshine" out of B-side exile, they could have pieced together a better album from these sessions. Still, A New Morning is not a bad record, and it sent the band out on a hopeful note that was strikingly at odds with much of what had preceded it.

The five-piece Anderson/Codling/Gilbert/Oakes/Osman version of Suede has reunited and is touring, and a few years ago Anderson and Butler reconciled and made an album together as the Tears. Anderson has a budding solo career but has left the door open to a possible Suede album sometime in the future. If it never happens, so be it-- the band's legacy is already sealed. These three albums, and Coming Up in particular, show a band that picked itself up remained creative and worthy in the wake of what could have been a fatal loss. These releases give us that whole run in all its messy imperfection.