Before Britpop, There Was Suede
Before Oasis and Blur became household names, Suede helped British guitar music find its voice again.
For many of us who grew up as indie kids, we were introduced to this world through our parents playing bands like Oasis and Blur, and those who came after them. These are bands that have cemented themselves in British rock history and helped shape the music we grew up with.
But there is one band that goes somewhat under the radar who, in the early 90s, were a catalyst for what would become Britpop. They were Suede.
London, 1992
In May 1992, Suede released The Drowners. It had modest success in the charts, reaching Number 49 in the UK, but little did those early listeners know that this single would become an important moment in British rock history.
Melody Maker put Suede on its cover and called them “The best new band in Britain” before they had even released an album.
The press could already see that this wasn’t just another British rock band. There was something different about Suede entirely.
The British comeback
Suede’s timing was almost perfect.
The country had spent years moving between different musical worlds, trying to find its sound. Acid house had changed youth culture. The Stone Roses had brought guitars and dance music together. Grunge had arrived from America and taken over the alternative scene.
What Suede offered was different. It was completely new.
They looked back to the likes of David Bowie and T. Rex, but turned those influences into something that felt completely their own. Brett Anderson was theatrical, androgynous and unmistakably British, while Bernard Butler’s guitar gave the band a dramatic sound that felt worlds away from the grunge coming from America.
Then came Suede, their debut album, in March 1993.
It went straight to Number 1 in Britain and won the Mercury Music Prize later that year. Animal Nitrate had already reached the Top 10, proving that the band were no longer just a music-paper obsession. They had an audience, and British guitar music was beginning to find its identity again.
“Yanks Go Home”
Perhaps the clearest sign came in April 1993.
Select magazine put Brett Anderson on its cover in front of a Union Jack with the headline “YANKS GO HOME!”
The issue focused on a new wave of British artists, including Suede, Pulp and The Auteurs. It was effectively a declaration that British music could stand on its own again.
Suede were at the centre of it.
The Union Jack was becoming something different too. It was becoming part of a new youth culture built around music, fashion and a renewed sense of British identity.
Britpop didn’t have a name in the way we remember it yet, but the ingredients were there.
Suede weren’t alone
This is where the story gets complicated.
Blur had already released Popscene in 1992. Pulp had been making records for years. The Stone Roses had helped create the musical and cultural world that Oasis would later inherit.
Britpop was never really invented by one band.
But Suede helped give those scattered ideas a home.
They showed that British guitar music could be fashionable again. They gave the music press something to rally around. And they proved there was an audience for a new generation of British bands.
The explosion
By 1994, what Suede had helped start was becoming something much bigger.
Blur released Parklife. Oasis released Definitely Maybe. Pulp were beginning to find a much wider audience. British guitar music was no longer just the obsession of music magazines. It was becoming mainstream.
By 1995, Blur and Oasis were being presented as rivals, with their chart battle turning Britpop into a national spectacle. What had started with a handful of British bands and a hungry music press had become one of the biggest movements in British music.
But the fuse had been burning for years.
The band that didn’t want Britpop
Suede helped create the movement, yet they never really fitted the version of Britpop that eventually became famous.
Their second album, Dog Man Star, arrived in 1994 and sounded almost completely removed from the optimism and celebrity that would come to define Britpop.
Brett Anderson himself has repeatedly resisted being boxed into the Britpop label, despite Suede being widely credited with helping start it.
And perhaps that’s what makes their place in the story so interesting.
Before Britpop
Britpop wasn’t born in one moment.
It grew from the Stone Roses, the music press, British pop history, the reaction to grunge and a generation of bands rediscovering what made British music distinctive.
But if there was a moment when the fuse was lit, Suede were standing there.
The Drowners arrived before Britpop bands became icons, before people had posters of them on their bedroom walls and before Oasis and Blur became household names.
Suede weren’t the biggest band of the movement, nor were they the most polished. But they showed Britain that its guitar music could find its voice again.
And before Britpop became a phenomenon, there was Suede.