The Student Playlist

Showcasing the Best New Music, Curating the Classics

FROM WORST TO BEST: Suede singles

  1. Positivity (UK #16, Sep 2002)

No prizes for guessing the wooden spoon recipient in this particular competition. ‘Positivity’ was a ghastly thing indeed, the anaemic lead single from the group’s appallingly bland fifth record A New Morning. The best thing that can be said about it is that it was a piece of Radio 2-lite fluff; at worst, it encapsulated everything that was wrong with its parent album. Lacking both the winning hooks of tracks from their 1996 commercial zenith and the seductive darkness that made their first singles such an attractive proposition, the breezy spaciousness that Suede were aiming for really didn’t suit them at all.

  1. Obsessions (UK #29, Nov 2002)

The two singles from A New Morning come bottom of this list. ‘Obsessions’, the second of the two and one of its few decent tracks, was almost apologetically released in November once the drastic underperformance of the album had become apparent. A shiny, hard-rocking affair that attempted to follow in the mould of ‘Trash’ and ‘Electricity’ with some trademark Anderson psychodrama lyrics of (you guessed it!) sexual obsession, all that most heard was a tragically faint echo of former glories. It limped in the lower end of the charts for a week before disappearing for good.

  1. Lazy (UK #9, Apr 1997)

Ever so slightly irritating because of its trebly production, and its faint resemblance to the Scooby Doo theme tune, ‘Lazy’ was an odd choice for a single release from Coming Up as it was by far the most forgettable moment from an otherwise terrific record. Anderson’s social observations of “barking mad kids and lonely dads” in its verses promised a throwback to the incisiveness of their debut (“in the flats and maisonettes / they’re reminding us there’s things to be done”), but the payout was a rather passé chorus (“you and me, all we want to be is lazy”) that made the package inessential and disposable.

  1. Electricity (UK #5, Apr 1999)

The first single from the divisive Head Music, ‘Electricity’ transported Suede to the Top 10 of the singles chart for what would be the final time in their career on the back of heavy radio and MTV rotation. It followed the grimy, dirty glamour of the established Suede formula, but the thrills seemed over-emphasised and garishly obvious. Furthermore, the warmth of songs like ‘Trash’ was replaced with something more alienated and icy – a relationship that got its “love from the white, white lines”. Shortly, it came to be understood as a symbol for the creative malaise and chemical abuse that overshadowed its parent album, and the band has rarely performed it live subsequently.

  1. Everything Will Flow (UK #24, Sep 1999)

Another offering from Head Music that was hallmarked with Neil Codling’s washes of synthesisers, ‘Everything Will Flow’ basically attempted to be the ‘Saturday Night’ show-stopping ballad moment from Coming Up, but was a lot less successful. Re-cast as an a-capella encore moment for Brett during their 2016 Night Thoughts tour, where curiously it had a lot more impact and poignancy, its original incarnation is not bad, per se, but just very overproduced. Anderson muses on karma as he watches the world go by his window, but it fails to really catch fire.

  1. Attitude / Golden Gun (UK #14, Oct 2003)

A stand-alone release included on the Singles compilation in 2003, which assembled 11 years’ worth of pretty excellent hits, ‘Attitude’ was a curious little track. Built around synthesisers and a moody, sashaying rhythm that didn’t sound like anything Suede had ever made before, it was a marked improvement on the miserable offerings from the previous year. The final single from the band before they announced their hiatus two months later during an emotional swansong gig in December, ‘Attitude’ proved to be a surprise success, charting inside the Top 20 with practically no promotion, and even hitting the top spot in Hong Kong. An anomalous outlier in Suede’s catalogue.

  1. Saturday Night (UK #6, Jan 1997)

The sweeping and sentimental ballad that closed Coming Up was released as the album’s third single, ‘Saturday Night’ was a wintry yet intimate affair that cemented the band’s crossover to mainstream radio that had begun the previous summer. A tribute to Anderson’s then-girlfriend Sam, it’s very slushy in a way that is quite uncharacteristic in the context of Suede’s usual lyrical preoccupations. It’s become a failsafe crowd pleaser for their live sets consequently – Brett asking the audience “what night is it?” when played on a Saturday! – but truthfully, everyone involved was capable of much better.

  1. It Starts And Ends With You (UK d/n/c, Feb 2013)

Suede’s first single in nearly a decade exuded precisely the kind of ebullient attitude that had been so lacking from their last two records. Released after the rousing ‘Barriers’, a download-only track, ‘It Starts And Ends With You’ signalled that Bloodsports would be a stirring return to form. Full of the kind of major-chord bravura in which the best Suede songs had always specialised, the group rolled back the years and gave fans the sequel to Coming Up for which they had waited for so long. However, even better was to come. It’s testament to the high general quality of their singles that such a fundamentally fine track should be this low down.

  1. Can’t Get Enough (UK #23, Nov 1999)

With one of the most filthiest and downright horny riffs that Suede ever cranked out, it’s a bit of a shame that ‘Can’t Get Enough’ was kept back until the fourth cut from Head Music, as it was significantly better than both ‘Electricity’ and ‘Everything Will Flow’. Full of jagged edges and dripping with cartoonish menace, it saw Anderson as a deliberately caricatured version himself, what uber-fan David Barnett describes as the singer’s own ‘Lust For Life’, as the band pounds out a metallic, sleazy glam stomp. It may trashy, disposable and not particularly clever, but ‘Can’t Get Enough’ is a great guilty pleasure.

  1. For The Strangers (UK d/n/c, Oct 2013)

Another exercise in sweet simplicity in the same vein as ‘Saturday Night’, the third and final single from triumphant comeback album Bloodsports should rightly be regarded as a minor Suede classic. Blossoming into a moment of arena-sized beauty from a slow but sure melody, ‘For The Strangers’ was a warm, feel-good embrace of a track that acted as a sort of victory lap for a vintage 2013 for Suede, who had reminded everybody of why they were so beloved 20 years earlier.

  1. Like Kids (UK d/n/c/, Dec 2015)

The second taster for Night Thoughts, ‘Like Kids’ was another classic throwback piece to prime-time Suede that showed just how revitalised the band had been since their 2011 comeback. Oakes plays a ringing, spiralling guitar riff that sounds like it could have come directly from Coming Up, as Anderson sings another storm-und-drang lyric about living in the moment. With a creepy children’s choir that was a sly nod to ‘We Are The Pigs’, the lead single from the skyscrapingly ambitious Dog Man Star from 22 years before, ‘Like Kids’ was an obvious choice for heavy radio rotation.

  1. Filmstar (UK #9, Aug 1997)

Released a full 13 months after its lead single ‘Trash’, Coming Up was still yielding Top Ten hits. ‘Filmstar’, cheekily released as the fifth single from an already incredibly successful album, hit #9 against all odds in late 1997. Setting a paranoid, coked-out lyric of Anderson warning against the pitfalls of celebrity to a lurching, sleazy riff reminiscent of a drunken T.Rex, it was the sound of alienation writ large. Ed Buller’s trebly, shiny production gave it the garish and queasy quality that the content deserved, making ‘Filmstar’ one of the more underappreciated songs in Suede’s arsenal.

  1. She’s In Fashion (UK #13, Jun 1999)

A sumptuous, summery ballad that became Suede’s biggest radio hit in terms of sheer airplay, the effortlessly light feel of ‘She’s In Fashion’, the only obvious commercial moment on the troubled Head Music, belied an apparent six-month effort of experimentation and perfection in the studio. Neil Codling’s heady, gaseous keyboards held the key to the track’s balmy feel, while the rest of the band laid down breezy acoustics and Anderson crooned about a girl alternately “the taste of gasoline” and “the shape of a cigarette”. Arguably the most overtly commercial moment in their discography.

  1. Hit Me (UK d/n/c, May 2013)

Having laid the foundations of their comeback with ‘Barriers’ and ‘It Starts And Ends With You’, it was the likes of ‘Hit Me’, a glorious and forceful emotional gut-punch from Bloodsports, that really showed everybody that Brett Anderson and Suede were back to their peacocking, arse-slapping best. Cut for the album’s second official single, it’s a shame that ‘Hit Me’ couldn’t have got more publicity and airplay, as it belongs right up there in terms of their catalogue highlights.

  1. Stay Together (UK #3, Feb 1994)

The swansong for Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler’s fractious but inspired songwriting partnership in Suede, ‘Stay Together’ is a towering colossus of a song whose ambition ultimately exceeds the band’s grasp, but not by much, and it fails entertainingly. A stand-alone single bridging the seedy, hedonistic glamour of Suede and the doomed, gothic romanticism of Dog Man Star, it is best consumed in its full, unedited 8:30min glory featuring a spectacular guitar solo and Anderson’s evocations of “nuclear skies” and “two hearts under the skyscrapers”. A resplendent and bombastic arrangement, the band has largely disowned ‘Stay Together’ now, as it reminded them of the divisions and stress surrounding Butler’s departure, but it’s a fascinating if flawed document of Suede Mk.I.

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