The news of SUEDE'S split came suddenly but probably not unexpectedly during the week leading up to writing this review. After all, the gaps were increasing between new releases, chart placings were certainly on the downturn and - at least on the basis of last year's largely ho-hum "A New Morning" album - the quality we'd come to expect from this most vibrant and stylish of English bands was definitely eroding.
Still, even though the impending pre-Christmas dates look to be all that remains before Brett draws a veil over what has been a dramatic and memorable 11 years or so, you'd struggle to leave a much better-looking corpse behind than the one they do with "Singles": a contactual obigation job, for sure, but one with enough magic to ensure we'll mourn for some time to come.
Of course, even though Suede were THE hippest thing on any block you care to mention in those dark, pre-Britpop days, received critical wisdom has carved it in stone that they plummeted downhill after the departure of original, mercurial guitarist Bernard Butler and that these 21 songs are now presented in a non-chronoligical fashion to ensure the weakest tracks are hidden amongst the diamonds. So, is this a realistic overview?
Well, not entirely. Indeed, that view's a bit simplistic and certainly not entirely fair. Having said that, the work the original quartet did still sounds unimpeachably brilliant. Eleven years on, debut single "The Drowners" remains brashly charming and full of attitude; the flash of "Metal Mickey" and the vicious swagger of "Animal Nitrate" are breathtaking and the ambiguous, druggy sloganeering of "So Young" epitomises the promise Suede espoused. Then there's the doomed glamour of "Stay Together" where Anderson and Butler's in-the-gutter-but-gazing-determinedly-at-the-stars schtick seemed unassailable.
It would all come undone for many when Butler announced his shock departure later in 1994, sadly obscuring the release of the band's second album "Dog Man Star", which hindsight now reveals to have been possibly the band's finest hour. The designs had got grander, but even allowing for the blasts of brass and strings, "We Are The Pigs" sounds as remarkable these days as "The Wild Ones" does majestic and yearning, while "New Generation" reminds you just how brilliant a Londoncentric anthem Anderson could pen when still in cahoots with his old oppo and axe hero. This was Suede making good and showing everyone they were far more than merely Bowie, Blur and The Smiths on a collison course and a genuine force to be reckoned with.
Sans Butler, though, Suede were up against it. However, against all odds, they recruited rookie guitarist Richard Oakes (plus for a while sex symbol keyboard player Neil Codling) and set about proving their detractors wrong. Initially, it looked as though they'd pulled off the impossible and with third album, the poppy, immediate "Coming Up" they'd come up trumps again. Indeed, the catchy, Glam-pop stompers "Trash" and "Beautiful Ones" suggest the much-maligned Richard Oakes was their secret weapon all along and in the ghostly resignation of "Saturday Night" they'd conceived something as weightily impressive as "The Wild Ones" again. Even with "Filmstar" and "Lazy" - which are pretty much Suede by numbers - they still had enough cocky charm to get by.
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It's only when we get to 1999's partial misfire "Head Music" that the cracks are starting to appear. It's not all a botch, mind: "Electricity" still crackles with that louche suggestiveness Suede always did so well and "Everything Will Flow" - while hardly ground-breaking - again showed they had a firm enough grasp of big production numbers. However, for all its' bluster and bombast, "Can't Get Enough" really isn't much of a song and the desperate "She's In Fashion" is a gauche and calculated attempt to update the blueprint.
By the time of 2002's "A New Morning",though, the writing was on the wall. The litany of names sliding in and out of the producer's chair is a dead giveaway of lack of confidence on both band and record company behalf, and it shows in the songs. OK, "Positivity"'s just about acceptable and "Obsessions" is no slouch, but both "Attitude" and the obligatory 'new' track "Love The Way You Love" collectively represent a depressing nadir and are little more than the sound of the band's engine packing up while Brett hotwires in despair and the class of 2003 ignominiously lap the stalled Suedemobile.
All of which suggests that this probably is the right time to draw a veil over one of the UK's consistently best bands. Crucially, Brett has added an important caveat to the effect that the band may work again in the future if they're reinvigorated after a break from each other, so you never know, but even if this is all, "Singles" is a terrific collection with only a minority of real clunkers to detract from what a fantastic band achieved in a decade most young bands would give their limbs and back catalogues for. Cheers, Brett. We had a blast too.
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