Brett Anderson

The long running Suede/Britpop/Bernard Butler soap opera has taken another twist as Brett Anderson releases his first solo album starts an accompanying tour.

He may keep turning up like yesterday’s pants in today’s trouser leg of pop, but the impact of Suede's breakthrough year, their first 2 albums and the whole intrigue of the Anderson/Blur/Elastica threesome makes it an interesting story.... and then you've got that whole will they/won't they reunion story for Anderson and Bernard Butler.

So far, so Morrisey and Marr.

Few bands have been as hyped and yet also welcomed with such an expectancy from a waiting audience who just knew they were going to like them. Melody Maker had put them on the front cover as the best new band in Britain. It had been 5 years since The Smiths had split up and here comes this generation’s Morrissey and Marr.

Anderson was Morrissey with his teenaged estranged lyrics, ambiguous sexuality ("I'm a bisexual man who hasn't had a homosexual experience") and Butler was Marr. The most exhilarating guitarist in town, with a swinging fringe that could take the heads off the front row of an audience.

Debut single the Drowners was a Ziggy style stomper with guitar thwackery and stampeding drums. Fresh yet familiar.

Anderson was the Haywards Heath escapee who'd been dreaming of London sleaze and glamour, he had the Bowie fixation, the make up, and some fine individual dance moves. Something like a cross between an angle poise lamp and a pantomime horse...while slapping his own arse.

The Mercury prize winning debut album Suede was released in 1993, and was the UK's fastest selling debut album. I didn't really like the clunky sounding production by Ed Buller but I did like doing the comedy yodelling pronunciation of the name Suede.

Think of David Bowie's most Anthony Newley style bray.....Swaaaayyyyyyed! Bet you did it too? The Good Ship Britpop had been launched....it's just we didn't know it yet.

That's the thing with Suede; there were lot of Britpop connections. They were also briefly managed by Ricky Gervais.

Elastica's Justine Frischmann was in the original Suede line-up and she and Anderson were lovers after meeting at University where she was doing an Architecture course and he was doing Planning.

I have seen some footage of that early Suede line up with the future Britpop queen in trackie bottoms. Brett may well be in hairnet and curlers, or I may have made that bit up.

She left Anderson for Damon Albarn from the then struggling Blur. In 2002 she described leaving Suede as "I just thought it was better to be Pete Best than Linda McCartney. I couldn't deal with being the second guitarist and having this strange, Lady Macbeth role in it, along with being general mother to four blokes."

Animal Lover from the first Suede album is reputedly about Frischmann/Anderson/Albarn. Tender is Albarn's version of his own split with Frischmann and Beetlebum is his song about her heroin use.

The tensions that surfaced during Suede's second album Dog Man Star lead to Bernard Butler leaving in 1994 and gaining his reputation as one of the most difficult men in pop.

It's a an excellent album, wildly ambitious and it moves from the Glitter Band squall of New Generation to the bleakness of Black Or Blue and Asphaltworld to the downright morose Scott Walker feel of Still Life.

Collaboration with All About Eve singer Julianne Regan was aborted with Regan accusing the guitarist of possessing "Diabolical tendencies" and Butler pleading "I'm not the anti-Christ. I'm Bernard."

He spent a week in The Verve after Nick McCabe temporarily left and recorded a batch of songs with David McAlmont. This also ended acrimoniously, but the album was released as The Sound Of McAlmont and Butler and is a really good plastic soul album. Like Bowie's Young Americans with added Glam and Bolan.

After running out of people to fall out with Butler released 2 solo albums with Alan Magee trying to promote him as a Neil Young figure moving from the sidelines to centre stage. What he really needed though was a collaborator.

Suede meanwhile had released Head Music and also Coming Up with teenage guitar prodigy Richard Oakes stepping into Butler's shoes. As a teenage prodigy Oakes is not allowed to age and is still officially 15 ½.

He fitted Suede duties in between paper rounds and happy slapping...just like those other teenage prodigies AC/DC's Angus Young and Jimmy Krankie.

Suede ground to a halt in 2003 under the weight of the underwhelming New Morning album and Anderson’s addictions. Almost too fittingly Anderson had sung the "You're going to reap just what you sow" line on the Perfect Day Children In Need single in 1997.

Astonishingly after years of not talking either to each other, or even about each other, Anderson and Butler reconciled enough to form a new band The Tears. Here Come The Tears was released in 2005.

It's a good album with some tracks that can stand alongside vintage Suede. And then as if one reconciliation wasn't enough Butler went and recorded another album Bring It Back with David McAlmont in 2006.

So where can the soap opera go next? Well obviously to Brett Anderson’s solo record. He's gone and found himself a new collaborator in the shape of Norwegian Fred Ball and the live shows have featured Suede bassist Mat Osman.

The single Love Is Dead is melodic, melancholic and actually rather good. It's back to his old concerns "Nothing ever goes right, nothing ever flows". It's Morrissey misery with the song’s title sung in Andersons best Bowie voice with the full kitchen sink production and the orchestra in the utility room.

The album Brett Anderson is released this week and the tour is in full swing. Of course where the Soap Opera goes next is anybody's guess.

Anderson has described the Suede story as like " Machiavelli rewriting Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It involves a cast of thousands. It should star Charlton Heston ...It's like a pram that's just been pushed down a hill. It's always been fiery and tempestuous and really on the edge and it never stops. I don't think it ever will."