Brett Anderson is still “proud” of Suede’s third album ‘Coming Up’
The ‘Beautiful Ones’ hitmaker views the group’s third LP as an “odd little pop record” but he loves the fact it still represents a snapshot of the Britpop era and admires the lighthearted touch to the songs he wrote for the album.
He said: “It’s a strange record. It’s a sort of an odd little pop record but it kind of summed up a little bit of a moment in 1996, which is nice and kind of what you do as a musician (and) that you hope to do as a writer.
“I’m kind of proud of the songwriting on it. It’s good. It’s quite sort of unpretentious the songwriting. There’s songs on it that don’t take (themselves) too seriously, which is kind of quite nice because I think sometimes stuff on the previous albums – on ‘Dog Man Star’ and stuff – there are elements to that record that took itself quite seriously. And ‘Coming Up’ doesn’t.”
“I still think there’s a charm to it. I think some of the lyrics are good. I’m very proud of the lyrics to ‘Trash’. I think that sometimes as a lyricist you just sort of find that right word, that right phrase, and it doesn’t come very often, but when it does come it kind of drops in your lap.
“The phrase ‘we’re the litter on the breeze’ in that song really summed up something about Suede and our whole attitude to life. You occasionally get those moments and that was one of those moments as a writer.”
And Brett remembered a few of the tracks on the record represented some of the quickest songwriting he’s ever done.
Speaking to Danielle Perry on Absolute Radio, he said: “Songs like ‘Filmstar.’ I remember kind of waking up one day with this little thing in my head, ‘Filmstar, propping up the bar…’ It was just this little thing in my head, and it was really early in the morning and I remember calling Richard (Oakes) up and saying ‘I’ve got this thing, can I come round to your flat?!’
“It was 8 in the morning and in those days we never used to get up at that time. For some reason I was up really early, and I woke him up and I sat him down and went ‘Filmstar, propping up the bar’. And he just sort of sat there and threaded this guitar thing and then we wrote the whole song.
“The whole song kind of came together incredibly quickly and that’s quite unusual. I think lots of people assume that it’s that easy because they’ve seen biopics about The Doors or something like that where they suddenly write ‘Light My Fire.’ It was never like that. It’s always months and months of like poring over chords and changing words slightly. But this actually was really a very quick process.”