Suede
Head Music
»
Suede
Head Music
Nude/Columbia, 1999
RiYL: Davie Bowie, Roxy Music, sexy guitar trash |
This sound is a departure from the band, and a welcome one, but unfortunately Brett Anderson's lyrics have declined steeply from his earlier days of plaintive decadence, to become a caricature of himself.
The music on the record is promising, as guitarist Richard Oakes has finally come of age, and established a style for himself apart from trying to echo the genius of former guitarist Bernard Butler. And on tracks like "Electricity" and "Can't Get Enough," the shiny metallic glare of the guitars sets a vibrant and fresh scene. "She's In Fashion" is a rarity: a David Bowie song Suede hadn't written yet -- ebullient pop with a constant drip and chatter in the background. The kooky percussion gives songs like "Asbestos" a trance-inducing plod, and the kind of attention to bottom end (the music's, that is -- not Anderson's) that Suede had sometimes been lacking in the past.
But too often, Anderson slips into familiar and tired lyrical territory. He tosses off grocery-list tirades ("We got a love that's cold as stone / we got a love to a violent home / we got a love that ain't got no name / we kiss and love with lips like pain") and uses old standard rhymes ("scene" and "machine", "house" and "mouse") for one couplet too many.
Anderson's characters are always "shaking" on some "scene" or teetering on some faux "edge" of society. It would have some import if he was describing actual people, but Anderson seems to draw his hollow characters from old high-society films, dreaming about how they would live strung out on drugs and sex in a big dirty city. At least, you might say, he has a fertile imagination. But he sung about such characters with more verve on tracks like "Animal Lover" and "The Asphalt World" years ago, and seems to be rather stuck in his sexy trash motif.
Though an inventive effort on most fronts, Head Music is still a little too pretentious for its own good. Pink Floyd is head music. Head Music is just metallic Suede.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.