Brett Anderson is “proud” Suede paved the way for Britpop.
The Trash singer believes the group’s 1993 self-titled debut LP was “the first” record of the movement and inspired other bands to push for mainstream success instead of being content to be “workmanlike little indie” acts.
He told Uncut magazine: “It’s still an exciting record and very culturally significant.
“The Drowners was the first Britpop single and Suede was the first Britpop album, if we look at it historically, for better or for worse.
“I think it opened a lot of doors and suggested to bands in the 1990s that they could have more ambition and didn’t need to be a workmanlike little indie band.
“Other bands realised the playing field was open to them, whereas before Suede indie bands were ghettoised.
“This felt like a new chapter.
“I am proud that we heralded a new scene as there were lots of good things about indie music in the 1990s. That sense of ambition was one of them.”
The band released their follow-up album Dog Man Star – which was disrupted by the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler during recording – the following year and deliberately went in the “opposite direction” to their musical peers.
Brett, 58, said: “The beauty of an album is it takes you on a journey.
“The debut was the blueprint for Britpop – this cheeky, glitzy, Londonish world – but by Dog Man Star we could already see it being defined as a cartoon so we went in the opposite direction.
“It was the anti-Britpop record and the themes were completely the antithesis.
“This was about isolation and disintegration.”