Search - Suede :: Singles

Essential for any musical anglophile

Andrew A. Kramer | Reston, VA United States | 11/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In the 70s it was Bowie. In the 80s it was The Smiths. In the 90s it was Suede. For anyone who believes the most compelling and enjoyable rock music comes from Britian than this disk is a must. Of the 21 tracks 13 are great. Yes there are 3 or 4 embarassingly bad songs on the disk but how often do you find 2 great songs, much less 13 on a single disk?



Suede IS Britpop. Merging melody, metrosexuality, and and nifty guitar work Suede is a band with infectious music. "Singles" will give a newbie a good intro to the band. Hopefully it will motivate you to explore the individual disks. There are so many wonderful songs here that to pick out 2 or 3 favorites is impossible. Suede has been compared to a Morrissey-Bowie hybrid. I'm not sure that is correct. Suede's lyrics are too superficial to compare to Morrissey and Brett Anderson's vocals are not as Cockney as early Bowie. But Suede is the British torch bearer of the 90s. If you had to choose only one Britpop disc "Singles' would be it.



Suede's sound is quite diverse. There are instances of power pop, metal, soft ballads, and just plain camp. Suede was the response and antidote to the boring and languid Grunge. Blur, Oasis, Catatonia, etc... followed but never quite measured up. "Singles" shows why."

Necessary? Definately

Aaron S. Chase | Seattle, WA | 02/01/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you don't own a single Suede disc, this can be a great place to start. If you're like me, and own them all, you might think you don't need this disc, but you would be wrong! I notice that the version of "Trash" from this disc has a very different vocal of Brett from "Coming Up". I can't put my finger on it, but it almost sounds like a copy cat of Brett, or maybe Brett had been out at the pub and had one too many. Otherwise, it sounds the same.



If you have the albums already, this collection sort of bounces the hits around from album to album. In other words, they didn't go from beginning to end. It might work for the disc, and you, but to me, it would have been a little better programmed at the time the single was released in chronilogical order. (Much less sloppy this way). But no matter. The hits are here.



If you love this disc, you then must hunt down the self titled, DMStar, Coming Up, SFLullabyes, Head Music, and then decide if you'll take the plunge into New Morning. I own them all, and I thought Blur couldn't be beat. Suede proved me wrong once I got over the fact that they were britpop's underdogs and deserved a listen. They transcended britpop into their own sound that the copycats will hopefully copy for decades. I don't see why Suede can't reform tommorrow, but that's up to Brett. But Singles is a good final goodbye and hello to those new to them.



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