Quintessential Songs: Reducing a Band's Essence to Just One Song (PART 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of this little series of posts where I try to choose the one, and only one, song that encapsulates all there is about some of my favorite bands. I won't belabor the point by rehashing the "rules" for this little thought exercise...if you want to refresh your memory, you can read them at the beginning of Part 1. With that out of the way, let's jump right in to Part 2!

Blur: One of my favorite bands ever, and really the only band from my own generation (although others are close) that I place in the same rarefied air as all of the 1960s bands I have in the top tier of my rock music pantheon. If you want to talk about a band that constantly changed and evolved their sound from one album to the next, Blur will be near the top of that list. While this factor is one of the things that has made them so successful, both critically and commercially, it also makes my task here that much harder. How on earth do I choose just one song that covers all of the different aspects of their sound, which encompasses everything like classic British pop and rock, American lo-fi, English Music Hall, electronic, and world music? Like any great band, they have an instantly identifiable sound but no two albums sound alike and they've spent their entire career constantly pushing forward. It took me a really long time to come up with that one song that captures everything about them, but I think I made a good choice with...

Beetlebum. It's probably my favorite Blur song of all time anyway, and the more I thought about it, it seemed like it was the right choice for this little game we're playing here. With that muted guitar intro before launching into a memorable riff, it grabs your attention right away. The chorus is gorgeous, catchy, and very Beatle-esque...in fact, the entire song is. I've read it described elsewhere as the darkness and light of the White Album all in one song, and for me that's a perfect description. It's the ideal mix of Blur's melodic gift, their edginess and experimental tendencies, imaginative production, and fabulous musicianship.  While Blur's entire career is chock full of superlative moments on both the single and album scale, in my mind "Beetlebum" has always been not only their best song, but their quintessential song.

Rush: Rush is one of those bands you either love or hate...there doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Their fans tend to be predominantly male, musicians themselves, geeky (ie into sci-fi, philosophy, science, technology), and in many cases highly intelligent. Indeed, as a massive Rush fan myself I fit all of those criteria, as do 99% of the the fellow Rush fanatics I've met over the course of my life...the amount of guys I've known in my career as a chemist who are also Rush fans is huge. Musically, all three of the guys in the band are virtuosos, and lyrically they are very smart, philosophical, and playfully humorous. Even with a career spanning 40+ years and millions of records sold, people either love these guys or despise and dismiss them. Putting all of that aside, the biggest challenge for me in choosing just one Rush song to represent their long career has to do with all of the different musical phases they've had. First was the hard rock power trio prog era of 1974-1976. Starting with 1976's breakthrough album 2112  through 1984 they were one of the finest rock bands on the planet, melding hard rock with progressive rock's virtuosity and ambitious concepts and compositions. From 1984-1988 they heavily incorporated synthesizers into their sound, while from 1989 to the present they've returned to a more stripped down, heavier sound. There's an awful lot of ground to cover, although in the end my final choice wasn't as surprising to me as I thought it would be...

Red Barchetta. It's the second song off of their biggest selling and most well-known album, 1981's Moving Pictures, a record chock full of hits like "Tom Sawyer," "YYZ," "Limelight," and "Vital Signs." "Red Barchetta" is a fantastic song, but probably only known to hardcore Rush fans, so why did I choose it as my essential Rush song? There are a variety of reasons, the first being that it comes from an album smack dab in the middle of the period in their career when they were transitioning from the long, elaborate song-suites to leaner, more streamlined songs. Moving Pictures was the last Rush album to contain a long, 10+ minute song ("The Camera Eye") and they still had one foot (barely) planted in their prog past as they looked toward the more stripped down, synth-laden 1980s. "Red Barchetta" straddles this divide as it's nearly 7 minutes long and progresses through several distinct sections, yet is such a complete, unified song that it never seems that long. It's got tasteful yet essential synthesizer parts woven within the musical tapestry, but is still mainly reliant on the virtuosic instrumental abilities of Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart. The lyrics are based on a short science fiction story set in a future when the simple freedom of driving a car is illegal and the world lives in fear of a despotic communist government who controls its inhabitants every move. It's an adventure tale of a young man who, along with his uncle, keeps an old antique sports car (the titular vehicle) hidden in a barn and takes it out occasionally for joyrides. On this particular day, the young man is caught by the police force and uses his driving ability and the smaller size of the car (when compared to the "gleaming alloy air-cars...two lanes wide" used by the police) to outrace them and return to his uncle's farm, where they laugh about the incident by the fireside that night. It's catchy, a fun story, some killer playing (that guitar solo!) and captures everything great about Rush, including their humor, something they have always had in abundance but which the uninformed tend to overlook. If you're not a Rush fan, give the song a listen...you just might like it!

The Smiths: They were one of the most legendary indie rock bands of all time and almost single-handedly kept guitar-based music alive in the UK and Europe during the dark musical times that were the 1980s.  Splintering right on the cusp of international stardom in the US (where they already had a huge and devoted cult following), the Smiths' reputation has only grown and grown since they acrimoniously disbanded in 1987. They never strayed too far from their very British lush and powerful sound that owed so much to the great 45rpm singles and albums of the 1960s and the punk records of the 1970s Morrissey and Johnny Marr loved so much, but there was definitely a progression on their albums toward a more mature, powerful, and exciting sound. The debut album, while solid, is a bit underwhelming, but from there through their next few albums, as well as all of those fabulous non-album singles and B-sides, there's a veritable cornucopia of stuff to choose from in deciding which single song is worthy of encompassing the essence of Smiths. My choice...

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out. If you're a Smiths fan, this is perhaps not a surprising choice, but even so, how can you go wrong with such a fantastic song as this one? It's buried as the penultimate track on what is widely considered to be their masterpiece album The Queen is Dead (for me, as much as I love that album, I actually prefer Strangeways Here We Come or even Meat is Murder) but it's worthy of far better. The fact that such a song could have been sequenced on the album that way speaks volumes as to the quality of the Smiths' output. The song has an instantly recognizable hook kicking things off that is repeated throughout the song and its beautiful, lilting melody and rhythm is propelled by excellent performances from Marr, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce. On top of this all is one of Morrissey's finest vocals and lyrics, chronicling the doomed romanticism of the lovesick narrator who is too crippled by shyness and insecurity to express his feelings: he'd rather he and the object of his affections die together in a car crash and be linked together for eternity in death than to risk rejection. The Smiths (well, okay, Morrissey) are often mocked as being perpetually dour and depressing by those too unfamiliar or lazy to actually listen to more than one or two of their songs, but this song melds Moz's tragic story (along with his humor, far too often dismissed throughout his career) with the gorgeous musical backdrop written by Marr and brought to life by the three instrumental Smiths. It's everything special and unique about the Smiths in one three-minute song.

R.E.M.: It's ironic that I decided to choose an R.E.M. song to immediately follow the Smiths, as the two bands ran eerily parallel careers on opposite sides of the Atlantic during the 1980s, the main difference being that R.E.M. was truly more of an all-for-one-and-one-for-all band, whereas the Smiths were more of a creative partnership (Morrissey and Marr) and two subordinates. The other major difference between the two bands it that R.E.M. went on to achieve massive worldwide stardom and critical acclaim upon finally signing with a major label (Warner Brothers) in 1988, whereas the Smiths split before ever recording a note for their major label (EMI). Because of this difference, R.E.M. went on to have an extremely successful 31 year career as opposed to the Smiths' mere 5 years. R.E.M.'s music covered the gamut from jangly guitar rock, folk, punk, country, glam rock, Americana, and every other genre that influenced them. Even among R.E.M. fans, there are many who only prefer the earlier jangle-pop, some who prefer the later, lusher material, and some like me who love it all. Because of this last fact, I thought it would be difficult to choose just one song to represent them, but in fact the more I thought about it, all roads led back to my favorite R.E.M. song which I also think crystallizes their essence perfectly.  

Man On the Moon. Yes, it's one of their most well-known songs and comes from their most commercially and critically acclaimed album, Automatic For the People. Even though it might seem like a safe choice, I really think it does everything it's supposed to do for this little thought exercise. It's got a ridiculously catchy chorus, showcases all four members' musicianship, and integrates multiple aspects of their sound such as rock, country, Americana, and pop. It's also got lyrics that are at once nonsense yet meaningful and funny, often at the same time. Coincidentally, it comes almost in the middle of R.E.M.'s career and covers all of the musical ground in a way I can't really explain any more. Just listen for yourself to see what I mean, unless you're a fan in which case you'll already get it.

Suede: Shifting gears back to the other side of the pond, I've already written a feature on Suede here on the blog, so I won't get into too much detail regarding their career. Briefly, though, while they've been around for 25 years, they've only released six albums (in addition to a host of superb non-album singles and B-sides).  They certainly changed their sound up from album to album, but they definitely remained true to their roots, with all of their music drawing heavily upon 1970s David Bowie, the Smiths, and Pet Shop Boys. They did foray into more straight-ahead 1960s-tinged pop with 1996's Coming Up and electronic experimentation on 1999's Head Music, but by and large the sound they established on their 1993 self-titled debut has remained the foundation upon which all of it is built. That being said, Suede still managed to pen songs that rocked in equal proportion to dark, achingly beautiful and despairing ballads. Perhaps that's why my go-to song for Suede is none other than...

The Wild Ones. Repeatedly cited by Bernard Butler as his favorite Suede song ever, I find it hard to argue. A beautiful ballad with an incredibly complex guitar part running throughout, it also contains one of Brett Anderson's best vocals and lyrics and is at the top of the list for the best of the Anderson/Butler songwriting partnership. A romantically doomed ballad of a love rapidly slipping through the singer's fingers, the extended version has another fantastic Butler guitar solo (is there any other kind?) which was inexplicably edited out of the album version on 1994's Dog Man Star. For me, this only adds to why this song is definitive Suede and why it's the only choice if you have to choose only one song of theirs.

Frank Zappa: Perhaps Zappa is too weird or ambitious a choice for this series of posts: the man's career spanned 30 years and almost 100 albums before he died, and dozens more releases have appeared after his death, drawn from his almost endless vault of studio and live tapes. If ever one artist truly tried to, and oftentimes succeeded in, bringing just about every style of music in existence into his own work, it was Zappa. Blues, rock, jazz, classical, avant garde, spoken word, concept albums, doo-wop, electronic, and many more styles were all amalgamated into his music. As I've written in more detail previously, he was also a keen and wicked social critic and commentator, and there was usually an element of humor to his songs as well. Frank is probably the one artist of whom I'm a fan that is probably impossible to reduce down to one song, but I'm committed (or should be, hah!) at this point, so what the hell...

Montana. Yes, my choice is a song about a fictional dental-floss farmer in Montana who rides a pygmy pony in the moon-lighty-night, rustling his crop with a pair of zircon-encrusted tweezers in his hand. No, there's no cutting social commentary buried in the lyrics to "Montana"...it truly is just Frank having some fun and coming up with a silly, bizarre story. However, it never ceases to bring a smile to my face or elicit a chuckle even after having heard it hundreds of times over the years. Beyond the lyrics, musically this is as complex and rich a Zappa song as you'll hear. Some of the lines the horns, vibraphone, guitar, bass, and drums have to play in unison are staggeringly difficult and showcase the always fantastic musicianship Frank demanded of his band members, no matter who came and went over the years. The vocal arrangements are inventive and harmonically interesting, and of course when you're talking about Zappa, you can never leave his guitar playing out of it..."Montana" has one of the great FZ solos on record, with his snarling, nasty tone achieved through playing through a small amp at maximum volume. His inventive and wholly unique guitar style and technique come through loud and clear...this solo is but one of the numerous reminders that Zappa was a one-of-a-kind master of the guitar. "Montana" doesn't cover all of the musical ground FZ managed to cover in his career, but it incorporates enough of them that in my opinion it's the perfect song for showing anyone who has never heard him what he was all about.

So that's Part 2 wrapped up...I hope you enjoyed reading my picks and would love to hear from you on some of yours. If you're a fan of any of the above musicians, which tracks would you choose for them? And if you've never listened to any of these bands, how did you like these songs?

(stay tuned for Part 3, which will be coming soon!)

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Suede

The classic Suede line-up circa 1993, left to right: Simon Gilbert (drums), Bernard Butler (guitars, piano), Brett Anderson (vocals), Mat Osman (bass guitar)

Welcome to this next entry in my series of profiles on some of my favorite bands.   Today's article is about Suede, a band that burst forth from the grimy underbelly of London in the early 1990s and became, for a short time, one of the finest British bands of the decade.  Propelled by the exquisite songwriting team of Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler, along with Butler's equally impressive guitar playing and the great rhythm section of Mat Osman (bass guitar) and Simon Gilbert (drums), Suede explored a seedier, more haunting, and realistic urban vein of British rock than many of their peers in the 1990s BritPop scene. However, tensions within the band brought on by a variety of reasons led to the original line-up's implosion by the end of 1994. Regrouping with a new guitarist who also happened to be a 17 year old Suede superfan (Richard Oakes) and Simon Gilbert's cousin on keyboards (Neil Codling), Suede remade themselves and released a two more successful albums before quietly losing steam in the early 2000s and calling it a day. After solo albums and various side projects (including a surprise reunion between Anderson and Butler that led to the excellent, albeit short-lived band The Tears), Suede reformed in the late 2000s (with the Oakes/Codling configuration) and, with a great new album released two years ago, are again an active band producing great music.  How they got to this point, as well as the excellent music they made along the way, will be the subject of the following profile now that you've read my potted Suede history, so read on and be enlightened...

The genesis of Suede was at University College London in 1989 when Brett Anderson met Justine Frischmann and, along with Brett's childhood friend Mat Osman, decided to form a band.  After placing a now-famous ad for a guitarist in NME that read "Young guitar player needed by London based band. Smiths, Commotions, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys. No Musos. Some things are more important than ability. Call Brett," they received a response from a young guitarist named Bernard Butler.  He was only 19 but even at the stage was an incredibly talented musician who was obsessed with Johnny Marr's work with the Smiths. Initially playing small club gigs with a drum machine, they eventually recorded a short demo with none other than former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce occupying the drum stool. Joyce declined to stay full time, not wanting to burden the young band (who were influenced by his former band) by staying on as a member (which is quite a gracious thing to do, actually!).  Eventually they brought Simon Gilbert into the fold and, apart from Frischmann on rhythm guitar, the now classic Suede lineup of Brett Anderson (vocals), Bernard Butler (guitar, piano), Mat Osman (bass guitar), and Simon Gilbert (drums) was complete. This is where the great music (and later, the drama) really started...

By 1991, Brett and Justine had split as a couple but she was still in the band. Making matters worse, she then embarked upon what would eventually be a high-profile and extended relationship with Damon Albarn from Blur. Her tardiness or absences at Suede engagements, often because she was hanging around with Blur on video shoots, hurt and angered Brett enough that eventually she was sacked; according to all involved, it galvanized the band and crystallized their sound into what they would become famous for.  (Justine would eventually go on to fame fronting Elastica). While their brand of dark, sweeping, and despairingly romantic music was out of step with the Madchester/baggy and shoegazing sounds then in vogue in the early 1990s UK, they continued to gig while the Anderson/Butler songwriting partnership began to bear real fruit. They began to attract the notice of the UK music press and even ended up on the front cover of Melody Maker with the headline "Suede: The Best New Band in Britain." Eventually signing with indie label Nude Records in 1992, they released a trio of singles that were stunning in quality and sound for such a young band: "The Drowners," "Metal Mickey," and "Animal Nitrate." Furthermore in what would become a Suede tradition these songs had B-sides that were as good as (or sometimes, better than) their A-sides. Suede's B-sides would continue to be of such high quality that many of them outshone album tracks and would eventually lead to a double-album release later in the 1990s.

Their self-titled debut album was released in 1993 and quickly went to #1 in the UK charts. It was full of incredible songs in addition to the first three singles, such as "So Young," "She's Not Dead," and "Pantomime Horse." The palpable sense of despair, longing, and doomed romanticism permeated every one of the album's songs and was so unique amidst what contemporaries like Blur, Pulp, and Oasis were doing. Even given the success of the album in the UK, as well as its respectable performance in the US (where it remains to this day Suede's biggest selling album), things were not well within the band. Bernard Butler was unhappy with producer Ed Buller while he and Brett, whose songwriting partnership had been so productive and successful, were moving in totally opposite directions. While Brett and the rest of the band were enjoying their fame and increasing their indulgences in drugs and alcohol, Butler was moving into writing and arranging more complex music. A grueling tour of the USA in support of their first album with the Cranberries as their opening band turned out to be the beginning of the end for Suede Mk. I as the two bands eventually swapped positions on the bill since the Cranberries were more popular with American audiences than Suede (there's no accounting for taste, I suppose). While the debauchery of the road was described years later as "wicked" by Mat Osman, Butler was dealing with the death of his father back in England and his recent engagement; he had no interest in partying with the rest of Suede and even took to riding on the Cranberries' tour bus between shows. Worst of all, they were sued by an obscure American smooth-jazz singer who had trademarked the name "Suede" in the USA; from then on the band have been legally forced to use the name "The London Suede" in the USA which not only sounds terrible but, as Brett said years later, is NOT the true name of the band. A standalone UK #3 single, "Stay Together" was released between the first two albums and while much loved by Suede fans, the song and its video have been disowned by the band (unfairly so, in my view).  During their UK tour of early 1994 Bernard Butler played what would turn out to be his final show with Suede as work on their second album proved to be the final nail in the coffin for his tenure in the band.  Brett Anderson had recently moved into an old, isolated Victorian mansion in Highgate and escalated his intake of hallucinogens in pursuit of artistic enlightenment and inspiration. He was also going through trying personal times in his romantic relationship while Butler took some swipes at him in the press. The major factors leading to his split from the band were Butler's presentation of longer and more elaborate songs and more critically, his dislike of Ed Buller's production: he felt it was lacking and that he could do a better job, while Brett, Mat, and Simon sided with the producer. Bernard gave them an ultimatum: Buller or me, and shockingly they called his bluff.  The album, which would be released as Dog Man Star pate in 1994, was still some distance from completion and required overdubs from Butler which took place alone in a different studio, while Brett had to finish writing lyrics and replaced all of his guide vocals with proper tracks. One song, "The Power," didn't even have final guitar parts by Butler and was completed by a session guitarist who used Bernard's demo for reference. The end result was an album that, while a critical darling now considered Suede's masterpiece (an assessment I wholeheartedly agree with) which sold respectably and reached #3 in the UK album charts, was completely overshadowed in a year that was dominated  by Blur's Parklife and Oasis' Definitely Maybe. It's a shame because from beginning to end it's a stunning record, from the striking album cover to the gloomy, romantic, and despairing music contained within. Such exquisite songs like "We Are the Pigs," "The Wild Ones," "Daddy's Speeding," "New Generation," and "The Asphalt World" stand up alongside anything anyone else in 1990s rock was producing. The album as a whole presents a look at England and relationships that is seedier, darker, more violent, and rougher than what was going on around them in the dayglo BritPop scene, making it out of step enough from the rest of the BritPop/Cool Britannia movement that it was never mainstream despite being as good artistically as anything else.

So there Suede found themselves at the end of 1994 with an album that deserved far better than its commercial fate and without their guitarist who also happened to co-write all of their songs.  The latter issue was quickly resolved by bringing in Richard Oakes to fill the vacant spot. Oakes was a 17 year old Suede fan who had sent in a demo tape of himself playing Butler's parts note-for-note, much in the same way Butler had made tapes of himself doing the same to Johnny Marr's guitar parts from the Smiths a decade earlier.  He even looked the part, with long black hair and a red Gibson ES-355 just like Butler played. Indeed, Bernard was less than impressed, criticizing his old band in the press as having replaced him with a "copy."  The band toured Dog Man Star in 1995 but as it was an album recorded by an incarnation of the band that no longer existed, their hearts weren't really in it.  Regrouping for their next album, Anderson decided the band would make a pop album where every track could be a single, similar to his and Osman's beloved 80s pop records. Bringing in Simon Gilbert's cousin Neil Codling on keyboards, the resulting album, Coming Up, was released in 1996 and was a bold and bracing statement from Suede Mk. II. Eschewing the dark, 70s glam sartorial style of the original lineup, the new version of the band favored of an all-jet black look (hair, leather jackets, t-shirts, jeans, and Dr. Martens) as they underwent a visual as well as a musical makeover. The resulting album showed that musically the band were as good as ever with Oakes a more than capable replacement for Butler while Codling's keyboards added a new texture to their sound.  The album itself was a big success with Brett's prediction proven to be half correct; a whopping FIVE of the album's ten tracks were released as singles, all reaching the top 10.  However, the following album would prove to be more problematic...

Suede Mk. II (1995-present), Left to Right: Gilbert, Richard Oakes, Osman, Anderson, Neil Codling

In between 1996's Coming Up and its follow up, 1999's Head Music, Suede released a double album compilation of their B-sides called Sci-Fi Lullabies. What this album did was show the rest of the world what Suede fans had known for years: that the band's B-sides were of a quality equal to or surpassing many other band's album cuts.  Standouts like "My Insatiable One," "He's Dead," "To the Birds," "Together," and "Young Men" were just some of the riches to be found on this compilation.  Focusing on new music, however, all was not well in the Suede camp during the making of Head Music. Brett had sunk even further into his drug habit, now becoming addicted to crack cocaine. In order to cope with the increasingly chaotic sessions, Richard Oakes began to drink heavily while Neil Codling began suffering from the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).  Coupled with a more electronic and experimental sound, it all added up to a recipe for disaster and while the resulting music wasn't terrible, it was inconsistent and contained the single worst song Suede ever recorded (the Neil Codling-penned "Elephant Man").  The album did, however, contain some absolute stunners like "Electricity," "She's In Fashion," "He's Gone," and "Everything Will Flow." It went to #1 in the UK album charts but there was a sinking feeling that Suede were a spent force as Brett's lyrics veered into self-referential self-parody and the experimental approach to the music didn't come off as well as hoped. Codling's CFS caused him to leave the band shortly thereafter, further upsetting Brett as he struggled to and finally succeeded in conquering his drug addictions. Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, the band recruited former Strangelove member Alex Lee as Codling's replacement and recorded 2002's A New Morning.  Vilified by the band and fans alike, the album proved to be Suede's nadir and while there are some decent songs ("Lost in TV," "Beautiful Loser," and "Astrogirl") overall it was an unsatisfying confection: Suede as toothless, middle of the road pop band.  After playing some gigs where they performed each of their albums in full on successive nights and releasing a single compilation with two new tracks, the band quietly split up in 2003.  Brett would go on to reunite with Bernard to form the band The Tears, who recorded and released an excellent album entitled Here Come the Tears. They played several gigs around the UK and Europe and even supposedly recorded a follow-up album that sadly remains unreleased as they quietly disbanded a short time after.  In the immediate aftermath of his leaving Suede, Bernard had recorded two excellent albums with soul singer David McAlmont as well as two uneven but solid solo albums.  Following the demise of the Tears, Brett released some low key solo albums that were quite good but sadly got little exposure.  However, after years of rumors and clamoring from fans, Suede got back together (with Codling back in the fold) for a one-off show in 2010 for the Teenage Cancer Trust.  They continued to play some festival shows and handfuls of gigs around the UK and Europe before the reunion finally became official.  Their most recent album to date, 2013's Bloodsports, brought the band's sound up to date while still retaining all of their trademark touches...the result was a fantastic work that is among their best and stands up to any of their excellent 1990s work.  The same goes for the B-sides associated with the album's singles.  Suede are rumored to be working on a new album that will hopefully be released within the next year, showing that they are back for good as a creative force to be reckoned with; the music world and die-hard Suede fans are all the better for it.

Personally, Suede were a band I discovered relatively late in my musical development; it wasn't until I was around 20 or 21 years old when I finally bit the bullet and sought out some of their music to listen to. I'd been a Blur fan for several years by this time and had certainly heard of Suede but I'd never taken the time to listen to their stuff until I hit my early 20s. I can say without exaggeration that I was absolutely blown away from the very first listen. Beyond the great music and the mood and emotion they conveyed, the guitarist in me fell in love with Bernard Butler's playing and I added another huge influence to my pantheon of guitar heroes.  His sound, his guitar tone, his songwriting, and his approach to playing all loomed very large in my own playing and he's a major influence on me to this day.  Like another mutual hero of ours, Johnny Marr, Butler mastered and expounded upon the approach of playing chordal lead lines and rhythm parts at the same time. He even influenced some of the gear I now use: his red Gibson ES-355 (with a Bigsby vibrato arm) played through a Vox amp is a key component of his sound. While I've long been a lover of Vox amps, I hadn't ever used semi-hollow bodied electric guitars but after getting into Suede, in 2005 I bought an Epiphone ES-335 (a great guitar made by the Gibson company but for a quarter of the price!) and I installed a Bigsby vibrato on it.  Since then, it's been my go-to guitar for the majority of my playing, a really versatile workhorse that not only affected my playing by my songwriting as well. I've also worked very hard at incorporating Bernard's technique into my own playing...while I'm not nearly as good as he is, I'm getting there! Musically they've given me a wealth of material to enjoy and are one of the bands where absolutely every track they release is essential to have. I've got all of their B-sides and oftentimes will listen to just those on their own, they're that good. Because I don't have personal experience with most, if not all, of the aspects touched on in the darker reaches of Suede's music, I can't personally relate to much of it even though I continue to enjoy the hell out of it. There still are, however, many, many of their songs that mean a lot to me for reasons having to do with love, loss, uncertainty, confusion, and yes, even happiness. Just like the Smiths, Suede are often unfairly labeled as a "depressing/gloomy" band, but they have their fair share of songs about the various joys of life, love, and music.  Perhaps more than most bands from my own generation that I'm into, they've had the strongest impact on my own music-making and as such, deserve their lofty position in my hierarchy of favorite bands. 

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