The Domestic Terrorist - Head Music : A retrospective from the year 2000

Suede - Head Music : A retrospective from the year 2000
(another archive piece dredged up from my days working on Suede�s fanclub)

15 months ago, a band you may have heard of released their fourth album of brand spanking new material, the marvellous �Head Music. As with any truly classic record, it takes a while for the record to become a part of you, even though it feels like it�s always been there. the words become imprinted inside your head, the music became second nature to your ears. like someone has taken the unspoken thoughts of you head and put them into music.

At the time, �Head Music wasn�t the earth shattering success that people thought it might be. Goalposts had been changed. The press had shifted from writing about music that was good to music that would shift �units�. For a week or two, even I, was sick of the sight of Suede on every TV show there was. But of course, the music spoke for itself. In a world where people shout, and being an idiot savant immediately equates with being an artist of the time, all it means is that the heroes we are given are just inarticulate morons. Now more than ever, we need a time for heroes, for people who aren�t afraid to say what they feel and not what they are told they should feel. Suede dare to be different.

As a result �Head Music is an excellent album that gets better with age. It�s almost too good to appreciate at first glance. And given the abundance of riches from the session. I�m sure every Suede fan has a list of songs they wish had made the final cut. Songs like Seascape, Let�s Go, Leaving and Since You Went Away seem wasted on single to these ears. I�m sure you have your own opinions.

It�s a place beyond anything Suede have recorded so far - the glories that they hinted at with previous releases. On occasions, with the brusher, louder stuff being the musical equivalent of a drunken fumble behind the bushes, we could all see that even when Suede aren�t moving, they�re moving.

What else does �Head Music� prove? It�s in the grooves. There is nothing left for them to prove. They know what they�re doing. They do it damn well. They aren�t in it for fame and success. They�re not some shell of a soap opera with an ever changing line up and celebrity girlfriends, Just so long as Suede can manage to keep themselves in brown rice and hyper-exclusive drugs, I�m sure they will remain a thorn in the side of the dadrockers, the supermodels, and moronic nupunkas. Whatever those are.

To some �Head Music� has not been the commercial High profile success of �Coming Up�. True, the �Head Music� was smaller, more compact than the four sprawling UK tours �Coming Up� spawned. True, the singles have had less exposure than �Coming Up��s series of Smash-Hit-45�s. And the �Head Music� campaign may have concentrated more on a global picture than just the British Isles.

But the important thing is that Suede are still here. They�re still good. And they set the trends. leaders don�t follow. Their appeal isn�t more selective, to quote the great Spinal Tap. They still sell out the type of venues they�ve always done. (The Velvet Underground for example, tended to play to only a handful of people a night in the sixties. Many bands I know and loved have broken up due to the sheer indifference of the masses, irrespective of their quality. For Suede, this is more than just a job. It�s a vocation.

Thankfully Suede�s situation isn�t anywhere near as bad as this, but �Head Music has failed to ignite the headline interest, even though it still sells a healthy amount now. Should Suede announce a concert, a thin line of pale and interesting beautiful ones snakes around a theatre in a town somewhere near you. It appears the press are far more interested in bands that give press (as if Brett doesn�t), and wear something stupid than make decent music. people think Suede have gone crap without actually hearing them and it�s certainly fair to say that anything of their I�ve heard recently stands just as tall, if not taller, than their previous work. Especially the long neglected b-sides. (Though I don�t know why everyone picks on �Sam� as any lyrics that runs �he looks like John Travolta� can�t be bad, and still makes me smile)

The way I look at is - Suede are still brilliant, and �Head Music is still welded into my CD player. It�s got a longer shelf life than other albums which I feel really closed off after several months of intense exposure. Let�s hop that Suede remain of the time, but not stuck to that time. Timeless.

It�s an album that rewards repeated listening with as much depth and invention as anything Suede have ever recorded. these are songs made for the bedroom and the living room. The place where music lives and breathes. In our homes. Inside our head. Head Music.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws