ARTIST RESEARCH - The Music

The style, the themes/issues/topics that are spoken about in the lyrics, and the tone of the music.

In 2013 a BBC interviewer said. "Not a concept album, because that's not cool."
I think he does like concept albums, as seen in this article: 

When we got back together it was important we didn’t end up just playing the festival circuit. Anyone can turn up and play the old songs but we wanted to move forward and make new material that stretched us creatively. Making Bloodsports and the reception it received suggested we had a future, that people were still listening.”
Mat Osman, Suede’s bassist, agreed: It’s gratifying to know that people still care. The warmth of the reception since we got back together has been genuinely heartening. You realise how precious it all is and it has encouraged us to be braver. I’m really proud of this record, I think the last three tracks, the end sequence, are as good as anything we’ve ever done.

I couldn’t have come back without an album. After a couple of years doing greatest hits tours with Suede we got to a point where I was like ‘we can’t do this anymore unless we’ve got new music’. It just feels like you’re going round in circles. I failed to be able to look at myself in the mirror with any respect so it was very important for us to make ‘Bloodsports’ to justify carrying on. I don’t think we’d have carried on otherwise, we’d have called it a day again. It was a lovely thing to find out we could make great new music together and this has led on to ‘Night Thoughts’ and hopefully I’d like to think we could make another record after ‘Night Thoughts’. It feels very exciting being in Suede at the moment, it feels like we have a renaissance happening, creatively.

A detailed analysis of some of the lyrics (click here)

Brett Anderson talking more about his songwriting

Looking at the murky corners of life, for me, has always been where I’ve got it right as a songwriter, documenting the darker and more twisted things in life. There’s always friction, you can always find friction in any relationship and for me it’s about documenting those elements of friction. A lot of it is about decay and ageing but also parenthood as well, becoming a father and your relationship with your kids and how that mirrors your own relationship with your parents. Having a child myself made me think about my role as a son. Songs like ‘I Don’t Know How To Reach You’ are almost a comment on my and my own father’s relationship, how these relationships break down. Inevitably there’s an element of looking back at the past.

Goes against the effect of digitisation which sees audiences not listening to albums in full put streaming out of order.

Quite sexually graphic at points:

So give me head, give me head, give me head music. 

In this live performance, Brett sings the line "Shaking their bits to the hits"
as "Shaking their t**s to the hits*

Issue with school setting, will be censored. Need to find the closest compromise.