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issue 1 june 2004

anderson was even more melodramatic towards the beginning of the band’s career, and quotes like these endeared them to their rapidly increasingly army of fans.

flailing about in a hyperbolic fug, suede were the talk of the town. two more singles followed – "metal mickey", "animal nitrate" – as did their fist album, called, simply enough, suede. months before its release it was hailed as the most eagerly awaited album since the sex pistols’ never mind the bollocks back in 1977. when the record finally appeared last spring, it went straight to number one. since then there has been the mercury music prize (lp of the year), a live video and a somewhat unsuccessful tour of north america (where they were overshadowed by their support band, the cranberries, a group without the camp excesses of suede), along with preparatory work for the second album. their current single, the bombastic stay together, is an eight-minute epic; their first for a year, it has pushed the band back into the spotlight. suede are in a precarious orbit right now, and if the gods – or at least their fans – favour them, this year they could be confirmed as the most important group in britain.

but this begs the question: are they worth it?

“i think all the praise has been completely justified,” says anderson, sipping coffee, frowning. “it’s true, we’re underrated. we’re totally important. that might sound like loudmouth popstar talk, but people don’t know how good we are. we write truly great songs and have a depth that most people haven’t grasped yet. the weird thing is we’ve become a point of reference, which is difficult to grasp. but i still don’t think we’re appreciated as much as we deserve to be. everyone talks about hype, but if it had all been hype we would have been squashed a year ago. we got press on the back of the fact that we are a bloody good band. yeah, we’ve got good press officers, but they’ve got us.” aha.