Suede

Formation

Brett Anderson and Justine Frischmann met in 1988 at University College London. With Mat Osman on bass they started a band, and in October 1989 they ran an advertisement in NME for a guitarist. Bernard Butler, then 19, answered it, and the group took the name Suede. Their demo Wonderful Sometimes won the Greater London Radio show Demo Clash five Sundays running in 1990. Simon Gilbert joined on drums in June 1990, and Frischmann played her last show with the band in October 1991.

In April 1992 Melody Maker put Suede on its cover as the best new band in Britain, before a record was out. In February 1992 they signed a two-single deal with Nude. Their first single, The Drowners, came out in May 1992 and reached number 49, and Metal Mickey followed that September. It remains the only Suede single to reach the US Modern Rock top ten, where it peaked at seven. Animal Nitrate, in February 1993, became their first top ten hit.

The debut

Ed Buller produced Suede, which came out on 29 March 1993. It entered at number one, sold more than 100,000 copies in its first week and won that year's Mercury Prize. The band gave the 25,000 pound prize money to Cancer Research. In the US the album came out on Columbia, where it remains their best-selling record. Pitchfork later wrote that the interplay between Anderson's voice and Butler's lead guitar on Sleeping Pills was like a dance.

Dog Man Star

For the follow-up, Anderson moved to a secluded flat in Highgate and wrote the lyrics there. Dog Man Star was recorded with Buller at Master Rock studios in Kilburn between March and July 1994. Butler left before it was finished, and session musicians completed some parts. Richard Oakes, who was 17 and had sent a demo tape to the fan club, joined that September.

The album is big and theatrical. We Are the Pigs led it off, The Wild Ones was the second single, and a 40-piece orchestra, the Sinfonia of London, plays on the closer, Still Life. It entered the UK chart at number three, was outside the top 75 by the end of the year and went gold in November. John Harris of NME called it a startling record. Pitchfork later called it the band's masterpiece. NME put it at number 31 in its 2013 list of the 500 greatest albums.

Coming Up and after

Keyboardist Neil Codling joined in the autumn of 1995. Coming Up, released in September 1996 and led by Trash, went to number one and produced five top ten singles. Suede headlined the 1997 Reading Festival. Sci-Fi Lullabies, a two-disc set of B-sides, followed in October 1997 and reached number nine.

Head Music (1999) was produced by Steve Osborne, leaned on synthesizers and went to number one. A New Morning followed in 2002. In September 2003 the band played five nights at the ICA in London, one album a night, and on 5 November announced there would be no more projects under the Suede name for the foreseeable future. The last concert was at the London Astoria on 13 December 2003.

Return

Suede played the Royal Albert Hall on 24 March 2010 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. In 2011 they played their first three albums in full at the O2 Brixton Academy, and in March 2014 they played Dog Man Star in full at the Royal Albert Hall. In 2015 they received the Godlike Genius Award at the NME Awards, and in 2018 a documentary, The Insatiable Ones, aired on Sky Arts. New albums followed: Bloodsports in 2013, Night Thoughts in 2016, The Blue Hour in 2018 and Autofiction in 2022. Antidepressants, released on 5 September 2025, reached number two in the UK and was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, the band's third nomination after the debut and Coming Up.