Of all the bands that are dear to me, Suede are one of the few I am still yet to see live.
This is a wrong that I shall right later this week, when I will see them on a joint headline bonanza with the Manic Street Preachers. To get myself in the mood, I decided to watch Lost in TV, a DVD the band released in 2001.
Lost in TV collects all of the band’s music videos from 1992 to 1999, along with some tasty extras. It also comes with a snazzy interactive menu that places you, the viewer, in an abandoned train station filled with static, where ghostly fragments of various Suede songs and videos occasionally haunt the airwaves and advertising boards. An eternity in this place would make for an excellent personal hell for someone who really dislikes Britpop.
There’s an innocence to Suede’s early videos, but not a lot to recommend about them. As the liner notes point out, the group were really quite poor in the early 90s, so a lot of the videos from their self-titled debut essentially just feature the band posing and staring moodily and gorgeously at the camera. Endearing? A little. But it’s hard not to think of Ant, Dec, and Cat’s impression of The Corrs on SMTV.
So, not all of these videos are remarkable, but some of them are. So let’s look at five of the best, shall we?
The Wild Ones (1994)
Directed by Howard Greenhalgh, who’s perhaps most famous for the lysergic video for Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun. He brings a similarly psychedelic feel to The Wild Ones, the best Suede song from their finest album.
Brett walks alone through some purple hills, and the band enjoys a lovely day out on Dartmoor. Meanwhile, a bunch of trendy young people do take baths, play cards, enjoy beer, and listen to the radio. The camera moves while they stay completely still, which is to say that Suede pioneered bullet time nearly five years before The Matrix.
New Generation (1995)
I always like it when music videos are filmed in the band’s hideout. For other notable examples, see Love Shack by The B52s and The Size of a Cow by The Wonder Stuff.
Directed by Richard Heslop, the New Generation video takes us inside Suede HQ, where there’s a Scaletrix track, banks of monitors, a glitterball, and the word “GUILT” painted on a wall. New guitarist Richard Oakes mimes along to Bernard Butler’s solo while a bunch of kids rock out. It’s nice.
Beautiful Ones (1996)
Directed by Pedro Romhanyi, who made a number of videos for the band, including the slightly creepy video for Animal Nitrate in 1993. Beautiful Ones has quite a simple video, mainly featuring the band performing the song in black and white. But throughout, key words from the lyrics appear onscreen in the form of t-shirts, car registration plates, playing cards, and more.
It gets particularly clever towards the end, as Brett sings a succession of “la la las”. We also get a glimpse of Surrender, the song by Suicide from their underrated 1988 album A Way of Life.
Saturday Night (1997)
Another offering by Pedro Romhanyi, this one follows Keeley Hawes as she makes her way through a London Underground station. Meanwhile, a party takes place in a nearby tunnel, which appears to be the same tunnel in which Keith Flint menaced the camera in the video for The Prodigy’s Firestarter.
It’s just a pleasant video for a very pleasant song. It’s also oddly reassuring to see 1996-era Underground advertisements, including a large poster for a production of Oliver! starring Robert Lindsay.
Can’t Get Enough (1999)
There are actually two videos for Can’t Get Enough on this collection. One was made for Australia, which is basically just footage of the group playing live. The other, which is directed by John Hillcoat, is the only video in which the band themselves do not appear. Instead, we get to watch a couple, played by Max Beesley and Laura Fraser, as they destroy their flat and everything in it.
At first I thought this was a revenge thing, and that they were ruining someone else’s flat. Then I thought it might be a metaphor for a breakup, and the scorched earth that follows. But according to the band themselves, they’re just destroying their own possessions so that they can start again. Which just goes to show.
THE EXTRAS
On The Couch is a lovely feature for lonely people, in which you can watch these music videos with Suede themselves. They appear sat on their couch in the bottom left corner of the screen. They occasionally comment on the action (bassist Mat Osman says “yes!” every time he appears onscreen), but a lot of the time they just sort of sit there watching. One of them points out that they feel like The Royle Family.
“Can we fast forward?”
“I don’t think we’re allowed.”
They really, really dislike some of these videos. They complain that The Wild Ones looks too much like an advert, and most of them get up and leave when Stay Together comes on. I’ve never understood why the band hates this song, but I completely understand why they can’t stand the video. It’s a meaningless mess, and features what appears to be depictions of people jumping to their deaths, along with some chillingly prophetic visuals of falling bodies juxtaposed with images of The World Trade Centre. And for no reason at all, Brett’s suspended from the ceiling.
They seem to agree that the video for Everything Will Flow is the worst thing they ever did, but they cannot agree as to where it was filmed. Bickering ensues. And though the boys seem to be in good spirits throughout, they also seem quite relieved when the whole thing’s over.
Europe, America, Winterland is a collection of films by Simon Gilbert showcasing Suede’s adventures across the world between 1993 and 2001. This includes scenes of screaming Japanese fans; an in-studio performance of their cover of Shipbuilding; scenes from their 1997 headline set at the Reading Festival; footage from the Head Music sessions; and a presentation of Simon, a B-side that was also used as the theme song for a 2001 film called Far From China.
It’s an intriguing selection of Suede miscellanea, but unfortunately there’s no option to watch the whole lot all in one go. Instead you need to select each video individually, year by year. And they say nurses have it tough.
Finally, there’s a feature called Sing To A Popular Tune, which gives you instrumental versions of the songs to which you can sing along. According to the liner notes, this is a tribute to the shows the band used to put on for their fan club, where they used to invite their fans onto the stage for some “Suede Karaoke” in lieu of a support act.
THE VERDICT
Would recommend if you’re a fan of Suede in particular, or Britpop in general.
Invite Suede into your living room and watch some videos with them. They’re a friendly bunch.
