Performer Notes
- Suede: Brett Anderson (vocals); Bernard Butler (guitar, piano); Mat Osman (bass); Simon Gilbert (drums).
- Additional personnel: Caroline Barnes, Shelley Van Loen (violin); Lynne Baker (viola); Trevor Burley (cello); Simon Clarke (tenor & baritone saxophones); Ed Buller (keyboards, synthesizer); Phil Overhead (percussion).
- Suede played intellectual high jinks with this, their debut album, employing provocative lyrics, a weighty, unknowing sexuality and the pointed angst of troubled teenagers the world over. The clever lure of their androgynous artwork combined tellingly with Brett Anderson's teasing flamboyance and dedicated (some might say studied) David Bowie air. However, they would have remained a one trick pony were it not for their stirring ability to put together some unashamedly great singles and adapt a host of subtle mood swings and arrangements that took Anderson's vocals to soaring new heights.
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (p.75) - Ranked #9 in Rolling Stone's '10 Best Reissues Of 2011' -- "[This] is their meteoric ascendance in full."
Rolling Stone (6/10/93, p.68) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...Suede is everything that great British pop stars used to be--compelling, confounding, infuriating...in singer Brett Anderson, the band boasts one of the great love-it-or-loathe-it voices in English rock...both irresistable and believable..."
Entertainment Weekly (4/30/93, p.56) - "...Suede plunder the styles of their pop-fop forebears and rock your last nerve like a fabulously inappropriate prom date..." - Rating: B+
Q (12/99, p.76) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s."
Q (1/94, p.87) - Included in Q's list of `The 50 Best Albums Of 1993' - "...mesmerising in its emotional sweep..."
Q (5/93, p.93) - 4 Stars - Excellent - "...[Anderson is] a tremendous performer...musically, Suede have created a sound-world that is uniquely theirs...shifts from raucous garage rock to luxuriant sweetness, sometimes within the same song..."
Alternative Press (7/95, p.106) - Ranked #94 in AP's list of the `Top 99 Of '85-'95' - "...Ed Buller's lush, widescreen production is the star of the show, filled with sonic holes for Bernard Butler's post-Marr guitar to revel in, weaving the web of musical deceit in which Brett Anderson's occasionally Cockney, occasionally Bowie...vocals [can] flourish..."
Melody Maker (1/1/94, p.76) - Ranked #5 in Melody Maker's list of the `Albums Of The Year' for 1993 - "...Gorgeous..."
Musician (5/93, p.90) - "...Suede's best [songs] are models of melodic ingenuity, blending coy lyrics with unambiguous sing-along refrains ...enough tuneful guitar to keep any listener happy....Suede does more in 11 songs than the Smiths did in two albums..."
NME (Magazine) (12/25/93, p.66) - Ranked #3 in New Musical Express' list of `The Top 50 LPs Of 1993' - "...the new-crowned kings of glammy bluster..."
NME (Magazine) (3/27/93, p.29) - 7 - Very Good - "...has all the essential Suede elements: sex (of the high temperature, doubtless illicit variety), drugs (do 'em, though the message is ultimately cautionary) and vague homilies to the greatness of being so young...[Anderson is] a twisted pied piper for a permanently lost generation..."
Record Collector (magazine) (p.93) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "On their eponymous 1992 debut...they were arguably the most thrilling band in Britain -- all glam decadence and guitar invention..."
