The production on the early Suede albums

But Pulp's His n Hers was another Ed Buller production! it sounds very similar to suede and dms, I think. And I love all three. He's especially good at wobbly drifty underwater piano sounds, which remind me of the clunky old upright we used to have at our school.

i have no idea what suede mean to ned, though

A band I really loved from 1992 on and started a mailing list for in 1995 and etc. Among other things.

Anglophilia is everywhere (and only feels stronger in year 6 of the Bush Regime).

Sci-Fi is great, too. I think pointing to Suede's "cast-offs" as proof that they were the world-beaters during that period is OTM. Should I go look for a Tears thread, or will people chime in here?

This is true. However there's a conceptual integrity to the thing – a gestalt, let's call it – which holds it together despite that middle stretch.

Realizing I am about to revolt all of you but utterly not caring about it, Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness has more conceptual integrity than Dog Man Star and that fucker is twice as long.

Despite all my rage you're still just a rat in a cage.

Ned, i hadn't noticed you liked suede that much, we could have talked about that in bruxelles ! (for instance how heretic it is to prefer "coming up" to the two first ones...).

Allowing for my lack of guitar-playing prowess, how can one tell? I remember reading interviews when Dog Man Star was released in which it was revealed that Brett played the guitars, but the electric lead sounds an awful lot like Bernard.

Are there other songs in the Suede catalogue on which Brett plays?

as for other songs played by brett, i suppose there must be in the post-butler albums as there are songs he wrote alone...

That's Suede. Dreadful band, acceptable and half-convincing at the time (like KasabianLibertineArcticKaiserKillers currently seem 'good' to some young and not-so-young folk) truly embarrasing now, they remind me of Placebo but withe the good stuff spread even thinner.

well, i guess, that's roughly what bernard thought at the time !
as for the rest of your post, i don't agree, of course, but it's all about taste, eh...

(has 30 second compact flashback of 1992-94. stares at comment. mouth moves. no words become available..)

I must have been unusually overwhelmed by indie-student-glam that day to have had bile to spare on this. Heck, they're mostly mediocre (Britpop was a hero to most...) roughly equivalent to the class of '06 I guess. Depressing how little things change :/

They were certainly nowhere near as irritating as Placebo in the making a career out of three ideas stakes.

FWIW Brett mentioned the other day that while the Tears continue on his solo album is finally coming out soon. I admit I don't know what to think of that.

Here's where I admit I have yet to hear the album in full. (Did it even get a US release?) The couple of mp3s I heard were nice enough.

If he's not up to much, he could ask the Psychedelic Furs for his old job back.

well if by getting back with the guy with whom he's done the best work of his life all he could come up with was some ok-but-a-bit-boring songs, I don't have high expectations...
and OTM about the handling of 2 comebacks back to back !

a nice read : http://thequietus.com/articles/16540-suede-dog-man-star-reissue-anniversary-review

and as for production on DMS :

'New Generation' on the other hand was, to Buller, a disaster. The stampeding cavalry of those Martin Chambers/Clem Burke drums, a multi-tiered pop attack all made 'New Generation' sound like a sure thing. But It was ruined by an abysmal mix, the "worst of my career," confesses the producer. Later on 'Trash' was viewed as the corrective to this wasted opportunity. "The guitars on that track were amazing and they were lost in the song," he admits. "The tapes should have been handed over to someone else, I was shot."

The mixing of the album was hastily completed. Buller claims that what exists on the original masters is far superior to what actually emerged. What did emerge sounded subterranean, drenched in that Butler-baiting reverb. Over the years, such flaws become part of a record's peculiar charm, even becoming the sonic glue that binds it together.

it's funny how time changes people : now the track I enjoy the most on DMS is "Black or Blue"... and I would consider the Tears album a pretty good follow up to DMS in parallel universe !

it's a freaking amazing piece that. interesting how BB has been proved right about the album and now even the producer is saying so.

how I wish a Butler DMS mix existed somewhere...

And as the years went by Butler made digs that barely concealed the trauma he felt from never taking Dog Man Star to completion.

I'd never thought about this but it must definitely be awful to have been unable to finish his masterpiece... (actually prevented from !)
kinda like Brian Wilson and Smile.
Maybe Butler should release Bernard Butler's DMS !

Never really got BB's complaints about DMS production. The production jobs for McAlmont & Butler and The Tears sound pretty similar - with extra lashings of gloopy string to make them sound even messier.

like.. woah.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFpeo1YLLsU

Butler's production on The Tears' album is worse than any Suede album

The production jobs for McAlmont & Butler and The Tears sound pretty similar

I disagree on this. Not to say he's a great producer or anything (he's not) but his production is very different from Buller's. Less reverb, clearer and more organic sound.
For instance on "Apollo13" from the Tears, Brett's voice is so close and naked it's almost disturbing !

I rate Bloodsports up there with the first three Suede albums, but my god is the mastering horrible.

― Welcome To (Turrican)

Completely agree with this.

The Power is a really good song but compared to some of the B-sides they had around then it seems like a strange choice to have on the album. I'm not sure what would have been the best replacement. Killing of a Flashboy is my favourite but not sure that would work in its place.

Whipsnade would've worked instead of The Power. Similar lyrical themes and kind of light touch compared to surrounding songs. But I like The Power. Would rather have got rid of Black or Blue.

The Power = Shed 7 on an off day.

This is really crazy talk though. Just about the only Suede song I can think of that is Shed 7 level is One Love:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbxopjx02DE

I finally got to listen to the BBC program "follow up albums" for DMS.
It's very interesting and quite heartbreaking the part with BB and BA admitting they were stupid and are still wounded and full of regrets to this day.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01j6srs

Also BA saying he should have changed the name of the band when BB left... so that they could have reunited later.

Meh, I think Suede did very well without Bernard. People are attracted to the Butler-era though, because that line-up didn't stick around long enough to make some out and out crap, which they probably would have done at some point had they continued. Post-Butler Suede made Coming Up and Bloodsports, so both line-ups have made two very good records, IMO. Not to mention B-sides such as 'Together', 'Europe Is Our Playground' amongst others.

Suede did lots of great stuff after Butler left, it's true, but it was within a quite specific 90s/00s alt-rock/indie template. They turned into a superior version of Placebo/Mansun, I reckon, which was fine but frustrating, because Dog Man Star suggested they were heading towards something more. Dog Man Star isn't indie at all - it's kind of pure classic/experimental rock, Bowie/Neil Young/Pink Floyd, not that original really - but even if they'd never have transcended the obvious influences I would've liked to have heard their equivalents of Station to Station or Low. On the other hand, there's nothing that Bernard's done since - in his solo stuff, with McAlmont, The Tears, or producing Libertines/Duffy etc - that comes anywhere close to the wildness of Dog Man Star. Maybe that record finished this part of him off? But there's this rock'n'roll fantasy of band members who hate each other making madder and madder music, and that's the thing that inspires regret.

well, I don't think it's possible to imagine what they would have done after DMS had they stayed together. and "coming up" and the mcalmont & butler stuff are certainly no indications since they would have evolved differently if they had kept working together, I suppose.
the BBC documentary is interesting when BB says 1/ he's never been as creative as during DMS ever since 2/ he's been traumatized for years and until now by having been left behind and not being able to finish his "baby".
I guess something was broken in him (and BA) at that key moment.