Seven Songs for the Week #111 - 21st May 25

Suede were already present in my week when unexpectedly (to me) they announced and new album (out in September) and single. The title track for the album is up on YouTube but not streaming, and might be better than Disintegrate. As an OG 1990s Suedehead, I enjoyed the last album, and this sounds like they're continuing the whole 1981 vibe here. It's good, but it's not unpredictable.

The bigger question is what does it mean to be a band 33 years on from its first release. That's quite a run, and the line-up is the same from 29 years ago (NB there was a bit of musical chairs around the time of the New Morning album). 33 years into Paul McCartney's career he was doing The Beatles Anthology. 33 years on from Space Oddity, Bowie was releasing Reality. Suede obviously haven't covered as much ground.

The reason Suede appeared in my week was that I went to see Bernard Butler last Thursday. The original guitarist with Suede, he left the band at the height of their powers in 1994 just before second album Dog Man Star came out. This was terrible news at the time, but 30+ years later it sure seems like everybody got what they needed out of the event.

I was at the Bernard Butler gig and he introduced this tongue-in-cheek song about the 1990s. I thought it was sad that he left Suede before he ever go to play songs like the Wild Ones live, and then he did The Wild Ones. It was nice to see him give a nod to his former self.

Dublin's Radio Nova is the most old school station in town, playing "real" music as they like to point out. Obnoxious trailers on the station will flaunt that they won't play Lady Gaga or such, which is their loss. Still though, you might get a Talking Heads or Beatles song (yay) or Queen & Thin Lizzy (shrug) but then there's Stereophonics and Billy Idol (drives into the sea). During the week Nova was on in the car and this track came on. It pricked up my ears. I have to admit, I know Paramore the name but none of their music. Anyways, I'm gonna have to do the whole Paramore thing now. Just to point out, this is a revolutionary bit of programming from Radio Nova - something from the 21st century sung by a woman! I'm sure their switchboard melted down.

I picked up a half speed remaster of this album for €20 - it's a record I've never owned so that seemed like ok money. It's possibly all the solo Pete you need. For years I had thought he was sitting between two long-haired Afghan Dogs on the cover. Need to get my eyes checked.

Have you seen CMAT's cover of Wuthering Heights? I only saw it this week. It's top vibes. So I went and listened to The Kick Inside. Ages like fine wine.

I was at one of those end of term concert events and this got sung. Pretty little tune. Did you know that Les Mis was originally a double concept album in French that came out in 1980? No? Now you do.

I have a rule to not have two songs by the same act in the one playlist, but it has been a Suede week, and as outlined above, the Suede of 2025 is not the Suede that recorded this in 1994. So are they 100% the same band?

This is the original edit of The Wild Ones which apparently was one of the reasons that BB left the band. Brett wanted the more familiar "oh woah if you stay" coda whereas Bernard wanted this guitar freakout orchestration ending. Brett made more commercial sense, but Bernard was at the peak of this guitar sound. Now they should release the 25 minute Asphalt World.