It's not that bold a judgement to suggest that Sci-Fi Lullabies might be the first compilation in history not to rip off "the kids" in some way. Like maybe two albums ahead of it this year, Sci-Fi Lullabies is set to become on of 1997's "must have" records. What's more, it neatly chronicles Suede's secret history and serves as an excellent introduction to the band for anyone trapped under a sofa after their living room caved in and who subsequently couldn't get to the shop in time when the singles were originally released.

Suede today are Brett Anderson, Richard Oakes, Mat Osman, Simon Gilbert and Neil Codling, but it hasn't always been like this. Before that there was this: Anderson and Osman were brought up in Haywards Heath, some 40 miles away from London, remained friends for years and formed a band as long ago as 1989. They finally met up with their guitarist (until 1994) Bernard Butler after he answered an advert in the Melody Maker and, together with future Elastica frontwoman Justine Frischmann on 2nd guitar, began gigging with the services of a drum machine. Some time later they met Gilbert and asked him to be their drummer. It was then than the Suede story really began.

In the early days, Suede were a far cry from the band that we now know them to be. They were hated, to be frank, journalists, venues, agents and record companies alike dismissing their low rent glamour and sense of style as a thing of ennui. Understood, they were not, and when they recorded a single Be My God / Art it all sounded very peculiar and only occasionally offered glimpses of the greatness to come. Maybe this was meant to be. Incidentally, the outrageously dubby W.S.D. (included on Sci-Fi) dates from these early beginnings, albeit overhalled and injected with the magic of the Suede 1997 model.

The album kicks off, though, with the brilliant and rather perverted My Insatiable One (which Morrissey covered after scribbling down the lyrics at a gig in early 1992). It contains the unforgettable couplet "on the high wire dressed in a leotard there wobbles one helluva retard". Without pausing for breath, Insatiable One is followed by To The Birds which always used to close the Suede set until they found bigger fish to fry (ie moved on). Both these tracks backed Suede's first single, The Drowners (in some places appropriately listed as a treble A-side), by which time Justine had left to start her own band, and around the same time that Melody Maker put them on the cover proclaiming them "The Best New Band in Britain".

Subsequently, Suede's singles Metal Mickey and Animal Nitrate went to 17 and 7 in the charts respectively and a lengthy stint of Suedemania ensued. Again, the quality of the b-sides baffled critics and record buyers alike. Showstopper He's Dead, the wistful Where The Pigs Don't Fly and starstruck/starfucked Big Time were enough to put most other band's A-sides to shame.

In March 1993 Suede released their eponymously-titled debut album and the floodgates opened. The album went straight to No. 1, turning gold on its second day of release. Later in the year, and perhaps more poignantly, it also won the 1993 Mercury Music Prize.

But there was no resting on laurels. Still the band continued to excel on the flips to the hits that followed. High Rising, The Living Dead and My Dark Star were all quietly majestic. The same couldn't be said for the savagely violent Killing Of A Flashboy, a dirty stomper that no one could believe wasn't a single in the first place.

It was at this time that part one of the Suede story came to a close, when guitarist Butler left (not entirely unexpectedly) towards the end of the recording sessions for Suede's second album, the magnificent Dog Man Star. The album's brilliance was unfairly overshadowed by the change of line-up - 17 year old Richard Oakes was swiftly recruited. But these perhaps understandable doubts were soon put to rest when Richard's first Suede songs appeared as the triumphant Together and brooding Bentswood Boys. In typical Suede fashion both stood dangerously close to outshining the main attraction, in this case New Generation.

A seemingly endless subsequent world tour finally came to a close in July 1995 when Suede headlined the Phoenix Festival where one of two new songs performed was the no-prisoners-taken "Young Men", a future B-side included on Sci-Fi and a worthy successor to Killing Of A Flash Boy. It was at this point that they stopped touring and got down to business.

Well, that business turned out to be a masterpiece called Coming Up. Trash, the single which heralded the album crashed into the top 3, becoming Suede's biggest hit so far. Trash was backed by Europe Is Our Playground which seems to inhabit some strange lost-future world as glimpsed from the mid 70s and is a suitably anthemic closer to CD1 of Sci-Fi Lullabies. Europe, for the record, is so far the only Suede song to be co-written by bassist and original member Mat Osman, 29 years in the writing and worth every second's wait.

CD2 continues with more Trash companions, the singalong Every Monday Morning Comes (another could've been a single contender), Have You Ever Been This Low, both by Anderson/Oakes, and an Anderson solo composition, Another No One.

Coming Up, meanwhile, entered the album charts at number one, turning platinum in the UK and doing similar business across Europe and Asia (double platinum in Denmark, if you're interested). And the hits just didn't stop. Four more singles went top ten with ease, bringing with them further hidden (until now) treats - the already mentioned Young Men and W.S.D, Sound of The Streets, introducing the mysterious character Sadie who later turned up in, you've guessed it, Sadie and the glorious This Time - all of which are no more and no less jewel-encrusted than the rest of this giant of a record.

Sci-Fi Lullabies ends bang up to date with two of the most recent Suede compositions, Graffiti Women, which Brett describes as the blueprint for the next Suede album and Duchess, co-written by new recruit Neil Codling, the mysterious keyboard player who joined the band, seemingly by accident during the recording of Coming Up.

Sci-Fi Lullabies will be available as a double CD set with stunning artwork designed by Brett Anderson and Peter Saville. It exists. It is already a classic. It's coming up to a CD player near you.

BACK TO HOMEPAGE

designed by