10. So Young (UK #22, May 1993)

The fourth and final single to be released from the sales phenomenon that was Suede’s debut album, ‘So Young’ tends to dwell in the shadow of the three incredible singles that came before it, and, likewise, it stalled in the charts. With a beautiful, rippling piano part underscoring its romantic streak, ‘So Young’ was arguably the most complex track in their repertoire to this point. Flamboyant, yearning and yet with a distinctive carpe diem sentiment, ‘So Young’ also served as the opening salvo for the album, laying out every aspect of the Suede aesthetic, it was influenced by a life-threatening drug overdose that Brett’s ex-girlfriend Anick suffered.

9. Outsiders (UK d/n/c, Sep 2015)

A stirring, barnstorming ‘us against the world’ epic in a grand old Suede tradition going back to ‘Trash’, or ‘Refugees’ by Anderson and Butler’s 2005 hatchet-burying project The Tears, ‘Outsiders’ was the first sign that 2016’s Night Thoughts would be a truly great album. An anthem for misfits par excellence, its protagonists have nothing in this world except each other and the short time that’s afforded to them and which might end sooner rather than later (“she puts her faith in the moment”, Anderson projects). It’s all set to one of the most driving, compelling rhythms and memorable melodies that Suede had produced for the best part of two decades.

8. Beautiful Ones (UK #8, Oct 1996)

One of the most overtly chart-friendly moments in Suede’s history, ‘Beautiful Ones’ raced out of the traps at an unusually fast pace and rollicked to the finish in stylish and entertaining fashion, built around Richard Oakes’ maddeningly infectious guitar riff and Anderson’s “la-la-la” sing-along outro. An indie disco classic out of the top drawer, it’s up there with ‘Trash’ in terms of the most immediately recognisable Suede songs to the public at large. The excellent video, which saw fragments of lyrics flash up on the screen through close-ups of everyday objects like banknotes and aerosol cans, tied up ‘Beautiful Ones’ into an excellent package.

7. We Are The Pigs (UK #18, Sep 1994)

Why, barely 18 months after their debut had become one of the fastest-selling albums in British chart history, did the lead single from its successor Dog Man Star do so badly? ‘We Are The Pigs’, and the rather ignominious chart position it attained, is best understood as a violent reaction to the Britpop scene with which Suede had been credited in creating. That, and the fact that its video was banned by MTV. Painting a post-apocalyptic nightmare vision of London in the vein of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, with “police cars on fire” and feral kids watching things burn, the fire-breathing production compliments Anderson’s demonic vocals and incantations. It also housed one of Suede’s all-time best songs, the scintillating, mechanised glam stomp ‘Killing Of A Flashboy’, among its B-sides.

6. Metal Mickey (UK #17, Sep 1992)

Coming hot on the heels of debut single ‘The Drowners’, which stoked the media hype around Suede through the roof in mid-1992, ‘Metal Mickey’ provided the band with their first Top 20 hit and ‘Top of the Pops’ performance, which was in the kind of ‘what-the-fuck?’ gender-bending league as Bowie’s legendary appearance two decades before, with Anderson in full peacocking mode and whose antics caused the presenter to quip “interesting use of the microphone there!”. More importantly, ‘Metal Mickey’ was Suede’s second instantly classic single in a row: rambunctious, full of strutting, flamboyant attitude and landing them a first NME cover. Suede had truly arrived.

5. New Generation (UK #21, Jan 1995)

The third and final cut from Dog Man Star, ‘New Generation’ almost didn’t get released, with the band wishing to put the Butler era behind them and pushing to release non-album single ‘Together’, a new composition with Richard Oakes, instead. It’s fortunate a AA-side compromise was reached, because ‘New Generation’ was too good a song to languish on a commercially unloved album, particularly as record label Nude had begged the band to release it instead of ‘We Are The Pigs’ as its first single. With Osman and Gilbert laying down a kinetic, rattling rhythm and Anderson leading a rabble-rousing chorus, it is frequently used to close Suede’s live shows to this day.

4. The Wild Ones (UK #18, Nov 1994)

Avoiding the confrontation and raunchy shock value that had been such an integral part of Suede’s template until this point, ‘The Wild Ones’ may be a panoramic, windswept epic designed for cavernous spaces, but its gambit is comparatively simple. Anderson drops the oblique and gothic imagery that characterised much of Dog Man Star and lets his aching sense of longing be expressed through straightforward, gorgeous sentiment. In a counterbalance to the dense, gnarled excess of its parent album, ‘The Wild Ones’ was a model of economy and restraint. Though its commercial performance suffered through Suede’s declining profile in 1994, scraping into a lowly #18, Anderson has said on numerous occasions that ‘The Wild Ones’ is his favourite Suede song, and it is a firm favourite among fans.

3. Trash (UK #3, Jul 1996)

In some ways the quintessential Suede song in terms of the way they’re viewed by the public at large (as opposed to their hardened fans), ‘Trash’ was a bona-fide hit when unleashed as the lead single from Coming Up at the height of the summer of 1996. A view of humdrum existence blown up into widescreen Technicolour, it sees a very familiar Suede conceit of the ‘beautiful losers’, the two young lovers against the world. Having eschewed the triumphalism of Britpop with Dog Man Star, ‘Trash’ and its parent album saw them deservedly take a share of the spoils they had helped generate for others.

2. The Drowners (UK #49, May 1992)

The firing gun at the starting line of Suede’s career, ‘The Drowners’ is one of the most insanely confident sounding debut singles in pop history. The pounding, mesmeric tom-tom beat; the menacing yet seductive guitar riff gyrating on top of it; and Anderson’s somersaulting vocal made for one of the most immersive rock tracks of the ‘90s, and one that stood out like a sore thumb in the depressed, detached guitar scene in Britain in 1992. Different from the shoegaze and post-‘Madchester’ scenes, and distinctively British in a way that the grunge copyists flooding over from America couldn’t hope to imitate, ‘The Drowners’ signalled something utterly unique. Any story of Britpop must start here.

It triggered an avalanche of publicity: the Melody Maker front cover, a first play on Radio 1, and a tiny gig in Covent Garden that was so full it reminded some of the Pistols at the 100 Club, all happened in very quick succession, and the rate of acceleration would only increase.

Furthermore, its significance to the LGBTQ community at the time shouldn’t be underestimated. Anderson’s clearly non-gender-specific lyrics, making good on the ambivalent polysexuality he played up on stage (his legendary quote that he was a “bisexual man who never had a homosexual relationship” comes to mind…) inspired many to take the plunge to come out – including Suede’s own drummer, Simon Gilbert, as chronicled in David Barnett’s biography of the band.

The single’s flawless B-sides, ‘To The Birds’ and ‘My Insatiable One’, also rank among the very best Suede tracks, the latter even covered live by Anderson’s teenage hero Morrissey. As an overall package, ‘The Drowners’ is one of the most important singles of the 1990s.

1. Animal Nitrate (UK #7, Feb 1993)

Completing the triptych of classic 1990s singles with which Suede began their career, ‘Animal Nitrate’ capitalised yet again on media exposure and artistic momentum and put the band over the top and into the mainstream. Interestingly, the band was pushing for the ballad-like ‘Sleeping Pills’ to be released instead. A fine song though it was, rock history might have been very different if that had ended up being the case.

Breathlessly described as Single of the Year by Select in January 1993, several weeks before it was even released, Suede were afforded the incredible opportunity to perform the track live at the BRIT Awards, which saw them symbolically gatecrash a traditionally extremely conservative institution that was just realising that it needed to capture youth market as the ‘90s went on. The performance itself was chaotic and beset by sound problems, but the sight of Brett’s confrontationally androgynous showmanship, in a lacy shirt, flagellating himself with his microphone as he suggestively sang “what does it take to turn you on now you’re over 21?” in front of ageing showbiz twits, is one of the most indelible images of Britpop.

A Top 10 chart placing for ‘Animal Nitrate’ followed, which was simply unheard of for an indie act at the time, particularly one that was singing about violence, abuse, sex and drugs. From now on, there would be no stopping Suede, and the song itself has been an immortal indie disco classic ever since.

To be perfectly honest, it could have been any of three or four songs that topped our Suede singles list, and the band’s fans would argue that it’s actually the B-sides like ‘Killing Of A Flashboy’, ‘Europe Is Our Playground’ or album track gems like ‘Pantomime Horse’ that represents the very best moments of this exceptional band. But for sheer mythology, ‘Animal Nitrate’ was a watershed moment: not just for Suede, but for British guitar bands in general.

What is your favourite Suede single? Tell us what you think below!