Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

power ballad “Glycerine”) but they were about as
English as Stone Temple Pilots. This was a low for
British culture, one not seen since the pre-Beatles
sixties.
Suede, a quartet who had been going for about
four years with varying lineups (at one point including
Justine Frischmann, who would go on to form the
excellent British power-pop act Elastica), finally
made it big in 1993. Their self-titled debut claimed
the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, topping the
English charts and selling faster than any record
since the days of T. Rextasy. They sounded nothing
like Pearl Jam and probably didn’t so much as sleep
in flannel even on cold, rainy London nights. Fronted
by slinky-hipped, floppy-haired androgyne Brett
Anderson and classically sullen guitar hero Bernard
Butler, they were Wildean in their celebration of
intelligent pleasure, but their music and lyrics were
pure Bowie: fearlessly sexual, with often homoerotic
lyrics that were emotional but tough. The guitars
were Mick Ronson–muscular with a nod to the
shimmery best of the new shoegazers. As with the
Spiders from Mars, the riffs on songs like “The
Drowners,” “Animal Nitrate” and “Metal Mickey” were
loud, fast and chunky enough to inspire the punters
to look the other way at lyrics like “We kiss in his
room to a popular tune.” The British weeklies went
ape for Suede, as if they’d all been locked in a
sinking sub and someone had just found a hidden
scuba tank. The ardor with which the debut was met