Thursday 2 November 2017

AUDIENCE RESEARCH - Suede's Original Audience

POSSIBLE INFLUENCES:
  • So far I've been wanting to at least try and recreate the dystopian image Suede had for Dog Man Star of a decayed London/England, but if I can't, then it doesn't matter whether they look particularly German or Luxembourgish 
  • This an example going against American Imperialism? (MANGeR pack)
After finding out that Suede had enjoyed some commercial success in Sweden and Finland (well of course they are pronounced SSWADE), I decided to ask a Swedish student in the Year below me whether his parents knew the band.

 SWEDISH, 40s to 50s, now live in Luxembourg 
I managed to speak to his mother and got some insight into how she sees they were peceived The mother of a student in the Year below, from Sweden, teenager in the 80s
  • It was mainly 20-25s
  • They were 
  • No difference in sexuality, the androgynous image of Brett Anderson didn't steer them in one audience segment 
  • "They were cool"
TWO TEACHERS 
Both were teens/20s somethings in the 90s
Mr Shaw and Mr.Teale,
Mrs Shaw didn't recognize my chosen track, but immediately noticed: "Of Course, I was part of the Britpop generation"
Mr Teale didn't reconze the track at first, but as soon as he heard Brett Anderson's vocals he recognized it was Suede.
Connects Good Times at Uni with Britpop.

MY FELLOW STUDENTS, INTERNATIONAL
Ruslan, Russian-Luxembourgish
James, grew up in London, lived in Luxembourg, one album in their car
Ethan, lived in India and Luxembourg for most of his life, nows of them, nut mainly through a teacher playing them 


In 1997 in Düsseldorf, Brett Anderson saying, in usual rebellious spirit (also rejecting Britpop). (+ this is on ARD, Germany's main public broadcaster equivalent of the BBC. shows they were held in a similar regard, though I can't find any ARD interviews now, more so ARTE, which is a more upmarket, arthouse station than the public broadcasters in Germany)

I think of one the successes of the band is we're pretty successful outside Great Britain as well. I think there's a lot of of British bands who are quite snobbish where they direct their audience...we tend to sell a lot more records outside the UK than lots of British acts, which is good. 'Cause I've always seen us as a European band rather than a British band.
Not just European, but other countries such as China, Japan, Mexico, Taiwan as the touring information on their website shows: 


Some reviews of their autobiography:
Suede remain one of my favourite bands. I remember vividly their appearance at the Brits (which at the time was still a cosy back slapping corporate event). I've seen them 3 times: I saw them on the Dog Man Star tour (which introduced their new guitarist Richard Oakes) and was lucky enough to see their comeback gig at the Royal Albert Hall. It's the best gig I've ever attended, there was so much love in the room for them that night which considering they'd almost become the forgotten band of the 'britpop' era was immensely gratifying. I also saw them at Brixton when they played 'Coming Up' in its entirety - another excellent gig. This is several levels up from the normal 'cut and paste' Music Biography. The author was a fan/friend/employee of Suede. It's a reissue of a previous book, but instead of undertaking a rewrite the author uses footnotes to add new thoughts & views to the narrative. This actually works quite well. It's certainly not a white wash, it doesn't stint on either the drugs nor the arguments. The band were great and this book does them justice.

After their debut album they never really managed to be commercially successful in the USA, they are one of the honourable mentions on WatchMojoUK's Top 10 British Bands That Never Broke the UK.

How Suede's sophomore album changed a fan's life:
http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/how-dog-man-star-suedes-gothic-monstrosity-changed-my-life-763181

 Another heartfelt tribute to Dog Man Star:
By the time “Still Life” gives its last orchestral flourish and fades out into ominous ambient sounds, Suede has dragged you from icy bleakness to a state of longing, an emotion that breaks down to equal parts pain and possibility.
It’s probably unnecessary to explain why this kind of thing would be appealing to a teenager – why Dog Man Star was such a good bad influence on my life at 15 or 16. This is the kind of music that, despite all the wallowing and seclusion, will nudge a person to start living their life. The line “Have you ever tried it that way?” from “Pantomime Horse,” a song off Suede’s first album, becomes a question whose ambiguous-but-not-that-ambiguous meaning will extend to every spectacularly imprudent decision you could make. Still, it’s not like Suede were the only thing pushing me out of the nest. I mean, it’s never just one thing, is it, despite what personal essays about beloved cultural artifacts seem to suggest? Other bands and books and real-life people and something inherently searching in my own personality, I guess, were every bit as important.

CULTURAL
Music used for You Have Been Watching, Channel 4 panel show.

 PLAYED IN TV SHOWS
Skins - Beautiful Ones
Luther - She

 RESOURCES

Fan websites/forums:
On Brett Anderson:
Neil Codling seems to have a bit of a following, due to hi cuteness
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