Dot in the Sky (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dotinthesky) wrote2008-01-14 09:02 am
dotinthesky) wrote2008-01-14 09:02 am
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Desert Island Drowners
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It would have to be Suede's first album. This was the album that changed my entire taste in music when I was 17 years old. Up until that point I was happy to hop around from one genre to the next - one day listening to The Clash, the next happily spinning around to Madonna's Immaculate Collection. But nothing ever meant anything to me, or who I wanted to be, as much as Suede. They were the ones responsible for plunging me head first into indie music, in particular Britpop.
I was still in the closet at this stage, living in Singapore with my family. "Animal Nitrate", the third single from the album, was a big hit - perhaps because it hinted at gay life in a country where homosexuality was illegal, where young Singaporeans had to create codes in order to show each other they were "that way". When "So Young", the fourth single, was released I went to a CD store on Orchard Road and bought the album.
In life, I'm a fairly laid back, slightly melancholic character. It takes extra energy for me to get excited about things, and perhaps that matches perfectly the mood of the album. A few songs stomp their boots, like "The Drowners" and "Metal Mickey", but the whole affair is in general a very dreamy, romantic haze - my ideal state of being. It was thanks to Suede that I discovered Morrissey (they named their band after his single "Suedehead"). I investigated this character called Morrissey, who had inspired such a great album, and discovered that one of my childhood songs "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" was by his band The Smiths. Cupid had added extra poison to his arrows that day; I was a step away from an obsession.
It would have to be Suede's first album. This was the album that changed my entire taste in music when I was 17 years old. Up until that point I was happy to hop around from one genre to the next - one day listening to The Clash, the next happily spinning around to Madonna's Immaculate Collection. But nothing ever meant anything to me, or who I wanted to be, as much as Suede. They were the ones responsible for plunging me head first into indie music, in particular Britpop.
I was still in the closet at this stage, living in Singapore with my family. "Animal Nitrate", the third single from the album, was a big hit - perhaps because it hinted at gay life in a country where homosexuality was illegal, where young Singaporeans had to create codes in order to show each other they were "that way". When "So Young", the fourth single, was released I went to a CD store on Orchard Road and bought the album.
In life, I'm a fairly laid back, slightly melancholic character. It takes extra energy for me to get excited about things, and perhaps that matches perfectly the mood of the album. A few songs stomp their boots, like "The Drowners" and "Metal Mickey", but the whole affair is in general a very dreamy, romantic haze - my ideal state of being. It was thanks to Suede that I discovered Morrissey (they named their band after his single "Suedehead"). I investigated this character called Morrissey, who had inspired such a great album, and discovered that one of my childhood songs "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" was by his band The Smiths. Cupid had added extra poison to his arrows that day; I was a step away from an obsession.
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I adored that album too. Still do. Have most of it on my mp3 player. I was at their Roundhouse gig and my GOD that was awesome.
You know, I'd never have called Suede or Pulp BritPop - they were about the same time, but they don't fit the category very well. They were so much MORE than that, whereas Blur and Oasis were fairly two dimensional (Oasis especially).
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Was the Roundhouse gig the one that later became the video "Love & Poison"? I have that on VHS tape. I used to watch it a lot stoned out of my mind.
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Pulp and Suede, otoh, were just brilliant. Jarvis and Bret, the dancing, the sexuality/sensuality of the music, the hip-shaking, the hair - ah. Perfect.
lumping all sorts of bands together who have nothing in common apart from being British.
Exactly - BritPop doesn't mean "pop music from Britian," it's a specific genre of music from a specific time. I mean, by the former definition a band like the Cure would be Britpop and that is so, so wrong. I was never a Britpop fan, but I was DEVOTED to Pulp and Suede.
And yes, that was the gig that was filmed. They used to play it on MTV ALL the time and I got to relive the experience again and again and it just ROCKED, I LOVED IT.
YOu know, we should go back to Feeling Gloomy. I'm in an indie mood. I feel the need to dance to The Drowners (FAVOURITE on the album, along with She's Not Dead) and Do You Remember The First Time.
I'm all nostalgic now.
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Which other bands from that period do you like? I love the first Elastica album (which I sadly lost), as well as the first Delicatessen.
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I loved a lot of the Manchester bands like Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, Charlatans, Inspiral Carpets, James (I adored them. LOTS), Carter USM, Jesus Jones, Primal Scream and tons of US indie as well. There was SO MUCH to listen to. I can't wait 'til the current trend of crappy synthy pop goes passes.
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I had a big thing for the 80s stuff; I'm really eclectic with music, mind you, and I'm passionate about bands more than genres. My favourites are Smashing Pumpkins, Tori Amos, Cure, New Model Army, Pulp, Smiths, Current 93, Guns N Roses, Dresden Dolls, Nirvana, Sonic Youth, Dead Kennedys, Levellers, Nick Cave (SOB), Baebes (of course), I used to be really big on Nine Inch Nails and I love a lot of classical music as well (although I grew up playing it on various instruments, so one does learn to appreciate and love what they're learning and playing). I like jazz, some metal, some EMB/darkwave, some country - I think the only genre I don't like anything from is Christian Rock. ;) My cd collection was HUGE and music was kind of my life.
I hated Hootie. HATE. Green Day are another I've never liked (although Basket Case makes me giggle), although I like Offspring and always did, they were far more PUNK than their counterparts at the time.
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Thumbs up for the other bands/singers you mentioned. :-)
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My favourite album of theirs is Thunder Perfect Mind, but All The Pretty Little Horses and Soft Black Stars are both wonderful as well. Hell, their latest album, Black Ships Eat The Sky, is really quite beautiful as well. He wrote a song called Idumaea and he has something like five versions of it on the album, where he wrote the words, but each of the different performers doing a version writes their own music for it. There's Marc Almond opening the album and it's so, so lovely.
They're very strange and dramatic - not to everyone's liking, I suppose, but I love them.
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Have a look here (ftp://deadpetals.co.uk/Music/C93-NatOrg).
The pass is 24ruled1 (I didn't set it and I don't know how to reset it or add other passwords for users and AAARGH). You can download a few songs from there if you like and see what you think. Definitely download Nature and Organisation's To You (David Tibet is Current 93, but he works with loads of other artists on other projects and N&O is one of them), as it is probably the most beautiful song I've ever heard. Like, weepingly beautiful, YOU WILL GET A TEAR IN YOUR EYE beautiful.
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Dog man star for me sir, but i hope our islands were close to each other to swap the cds now and then, because I would miss lots of songs from yours... in fact i would miss songs by any other bands so much that (quoting more or less eduardo mendoza) i'd probably drown myself in the ocean before I ever reached that island, if I knew I was going to be stuck there with just one album.
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and then the b sides - Where is this life of fun that you promised me?
Nothing here works but your works and I mean it
I have to leave
But oh what will you do alone?
'Cos I have to go.
If I was the wife of an acrobat would I look like the living dead boy?
You're on the wire and can't get back, let's talk about the living dead
Could have had a car, could have had it all,
Could have walked in the sky but we stare at the wall.
I know where the money's gone--
I know what you do
'Cos I've seen the hole in your arm and
The needle's a much better screw
But oh, what will you do alone?
'Cos I have to go.
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I fell in love with Suede and then Dog Man Star,
but I'd still choose Coming Up as my favourite though ;)
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They stirred it up and scared the suits shitless!!
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You have to check them out. :-)
And also The 6ths, the side project that grew from them. (Stephen Merritt, who is the singer, ringleader, is a lyricist genius - possibly better than Morrissey!!)
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im downloading suede right now. anything to do with morrissey is gold. thanks for the rec.
and yeah, i am too lucky :)
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