Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 1993: #24 Suede “The drowners”

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Suede is one of the great british rock bands of the 1990s. They formed in 1989 and quickly grew to prominence around the friendship and combined talents of Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler. Their self-titled debut had the British press fawning all over them and their sleek and sexy glam rock. The band would later be seen as one of the big three or four groups that spearheaded Britpop, a renaissance era in British rock and culture, and a scene I completely bought into, all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, over here in Canada.

However… however, I didn’t get into them right away. I know. Even now, I don’t have a good reason why not.

I was aware of them from the get-go and a lot of my friends were falling all over themselves for Suede. I remember a bunch of people I know wearing T-shirts with the debut cover art on the front, the androgynous figures kissing was definitely an attention grabber in my small hometown. I had a bit of a fling with “We are the pigs”, a single off their sophomore record, but the full on love didn’t come until the Britpop extravagance of their third record, “Coming up”.

Alas, the love for “Suede”, the mighty debut, would come much later for me and yeah, today’s song, even a bit after that. But now, it’s easily my favourite on the record and one of my favourite all-time Suede songs. “The drowners” was originally released in 1992 as a single* but I made the executive decision for it to appear here as the lone representative on this list of 1993 tunes from such an auspicious debut.

“The drowners” is a swanky, four-minute seduction. It’s introduced by machine gun fire drums and rip raunchy guitars. From there it slithers down your spine, like a slick stripteasing dancer, greased up and swinging around on the pole. Brett Anderson teases us snidely, vaguely hinting at drugs or sex or both, a wanton pleasure that can’t be helped, and that might just be fatal. And yet, our protagonist gives in to it. We all give in to it eventually.

“So slow down
Slow down
You’re taking me over
And so we drown”

*Incidentally, one of the b-sides off “The drowners”, an amazing ballad called “My insatiable one” appeared at number ten on my Best Tunes of 1992 list.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 1993 list, click here.

Categories
Playlists

Playlist: New tunes from 2021, part three

Things have been quieter around these parts over the last couple of months. I went from posting to these pages two or three times a week back in August to averaging just a couple of posts each for the months of September and October. It’s been a rough year all around and my wife and I took a look around mid-August and realized that the summer was almost over. We decided to spend as much time outside as we could and tried to do things that would make things feel like normalcy was returning. All that being said, we’ve had a good couple of months and now, I feel like I’m ready to start picking up the proverbial pen with more regularity again, though nothing like the pace at which I had going prior to my unexpected mini hiatus.

I should point out now that just because I’ve been quiet here, that this doesn’t mean I haven’t been listening to music. Far from it. I’ve continued to spin records whenever I get the chance and I am often streaming new music on the Spotify while doing chores or while working away at the computer. And yeah, there’s been lots of new music released over the last few months, more than I expected to find in coffers when I sat down to try to put together this third part of my New tunes of 2021 series of playlists.

“Third part?”, you might be asking.

Why, yes. This is part three. In fact, this is my third year running, doing these multi-part playlists. Typically, each part collects twenty-five or so songs, representing the musical output for a three month segment of the year. You can go back and have a peek at the songs that made my world turn for the first six months of 2021 here and here if you’d like.

Otherwise, I’ll stop my blathering and lead you off towards some of my songs of summer. Highlights include:

    • Drug Store Romeos have more than a great name, “Frame of reference” off the group’s debut shows off some peppy synth dreams worth mooning over
    • I’m not all that familiar with Australian indie rockers, Gang of Youths, and I only checked out their new EP to listen to a certain Elbow cover but instead, fell hard for “The angel of 8th Ave.”
    • It was “Scratching at the lid”, this dreamy but rocking first track that I heard in advance of Piroshka’s second album that had me looking hard and finally succumbing to that album pre-order button
    • Angel Olsen has some fun with an EP of reinterpreted 80s classics but this slowed down robotic take on Men Without Hats’ “Safety dance” takes the cake for me
    • Toronto artist Josh Korody aka Breeze has put together an album that sounds so much like the music me and my friends grew up on, we almost jokingly convinced my friend Tim that “Come around” was a lost 90s nugget
    • “Heart land”, an ear worm the likes of which I haven’t heard from The Vaccines since their blistering debut
    • And closing things off is Kurt Vile’s rip-roaring rendition of “Run run run”, just one of a number of great covers on the new Velvet Underground* & Nico tribute album, “I’ll be your mirror”

For those who don’t use Spotify or if the embedded playlist below doesn’t work for you, here is the entire playlist as I’ve created it, complete with links to YouTube videos:

1. “Personality girlfriend” Desperate Journalist (from the album Maximum sorrow!)

2. “Who’s your money on? (Plastic house)” Inhaler (from the album It won’t always be like this)

3. “Frame of reference” Drug Store Romeos (from the album The world within our bedrooms)

4. “End of the night” A Place to Bury Strangers (from the EP Hologram)

5. “The angel of 8th ave.” Gang of Youths (from the EP Total serene)

6. “Scratching at the lid” Piroshka (from the album Love drips and gathers)

7. “Romantic images” Molly Burch (from the album Romantic images)

8. “Animal” Lump (from the album Animal)

9. “Don’t go puttin wishes in my head” Torres (from the album Thirstier)

10. “Lonely” The Umbrellas (from the album The Umbrellas)

11. “Time walk” Bnny (from the album Everything)

12. “Anyway” Swim School (from the EP Making sense of it all)

13. “Safety dance” Angel Olsen (from the EP Aisles)

14. “Midnight wine” Shannon & the Clams (from the album Year of the spider)

15. “How not to drown (feat. Robert Smith)” Chvrches (from the album Screen violence)

16. “Come around (feat. Cadence Weapon)” Breeze (from the album Only up)

17. “Real pain” Indigo De Souza (from the album Any shape you take)

18. “Magnolia” Big Red Machine (from the album How long do you think it’s gonna last)

19. “Heart land” The Vaccines (from the album Back in love city)

20. “An acre lost” Sleigh Bells (from the album Texis)

21. “Days like these” Low (from the album Hey what)

22. “Is it light where you are” Art School Girlfriend (from the album Is it light where you are)

23. “Don’t hold your breath for too long” We Were Promised Jetpacks (from the album Enjoy the view)

24. “Head on” José González (from the album Local valley)

25. “Run run run” Kurt Vile (from the album I’ll be your mirror: A tribute to The Velvet Underground & Nico)

As always, wherever you are in the world, I hope you are safe, continue to be well, and well, enjoy the tunes.

*If you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend checking out Todd Haynes’ Velvet Underground documentary. It is excellent.

If you’re interested in checking out any of the other playlists I’ve created and shared on these pages, you can peruse them here.

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Charlatans “A head full of ideas”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Charlatans
Album Title: A head full of ideas
Year released: 2021
Details: Limited edition, indies only opaque white vinyl, 3 x LP, includes “Live _ Trust is for believers”, and signed art print

The skinny: One of my favourite bands for most of my life, The Charlatans (or The Charlatans UK in North America), were all set to celebrate their 30th anniversary last year. Of course, COVID derailed that, just as it did everything. Instead, the group announced plans to celebrate their 31st anniversary earlier this year, including a tour in their native England and a career spanning compilation. Of course, I jumped right on the pre-order for this white opaque, three disc version and it just arrived in the mail a few days ago. The first disc glosses over the highlights of their heyday in the 1990s. The second disc collects everything that has come from this surviving and thriving group since the turn of the century. And the bonus disc includes live cuts of tracks that haven’t appeared on the first two, recorded at a number of different shows throughout their whole existence. It’s a great collection that illustrates the group’s resiliency and chameleonic evolution, a nice trip down memory lane, and well, the autographed photo insert is just a nice touch.

Standout track: “The only one I know”