This is the follow-up autobiography to Anderson's "Coal Black Mornings", which I read over three years ago. Anderson is upfront about his intentions with the book from the opening pages. He doesn't want to recount the post-1992 Suede narrative that fans already lived through and know quite well. Instead, the book functions as an extended therapy session/confessional episode for Anderson, an opportunity to examine the past by applying the knowledge and self-awareness he has gained since those heady days. As a result, "Afternoons" is a bleak, almost depressing read compared with with "Coal Black Mornings". The first volume was full of dense, flowery writing about unusual minutiae, but by the end there was a palpable sense of excitement and anticipation for what was to come. Reading the book made me appreciate the unconventional journey that led to Suede's well-earned success. But there is very little joy in "Afternoons". Being in Suede comes across as a grueling ordeal (albeit a rewarding one that produced some of the finest music of the 90's), full of near-disastrous mistakes and countless regrets.
I think it's important for Suede fans to read this, because there's a certain brand of honesty that is rare in music bios. For instance, he's extremely frank about criticizing his own music, and isn't shy about flat out staying that certain songs (and even albums) were horrible and should have never been released. Anderson owns up to his poor treatment of friends and bandmates, and goes into thoroughly unglamorous detail about his years of drug addiction. There's virtually nothing along the lines of amusing road stories, name-dropping, or interactions with other bands or music industry types beyond that of his inner circle. His bandmates of over thirty years, Mat Osman and Simon Gilbert, are nearly invisible in his story. I found myself agreeing with his perspectives on the 90's more often than not. "Coming Up" is presented as his proudest achievement because the hype machine had already chewed up Suede and left them in the trashbin. "Coming Up" was their most commercially successful album, but if you weren't there at the time, you might view it as an inevitability considering the still ongoing quality of music being made by the post-1996 lineup of the band. Make no mistake, many people thought Suede were done as a creative force once Bernard Butler left. Brett gets it exactly right in his retelling.
One surprise in the book is his repeated laments about Suede's choice of b-sides, in many instances he claims that they erred in relegating great songs to the b-sides of singles instead of saving them for inclusion on an album. But every fan I knew considered those b-sides to be a profound superpower that was unique to Suede. I still believe that "Sci-Fi Lullabies" is the best Suede album. In North America, the b-side was a complete afterthought, particularly since singles released six months or year in advance of an album was rare. Why care about the b-side if there is an entire album of great music there to enjoy and process? In Britain, many bands would build anticipation for an eventual album release via a succession of singles. With fans being hungry for new material, the b-sides were expected to be stronger and worthy of repeated listening. Suede were the masters of this, you couldn't possibly retell the band's history without including those songs, and as such, every true fan was intimately familiar with them.
This is a good place to clarify some comments I made about Suede when they first reunited in 2010. These lines in particular stand out: "Suede were a number of things, but risk-takers they were not. They never strayed too far from a safe, signature sound". That was unreasonably harsh on my part. At the time, I had my doubts about their reunion, but after four albums of solid and far better than anyone could have expected material, their "signature sound" has proved to be more resilient than that of any rock band of their era. Second, Suede weren't risk-takers in the sense that their key influences were fairly obvious -- Bowie, the glitz and androgyny of 70's glam, the windswept glamour of Echo and the Bunnymen. But they were risk-takers by being profoundly unique compared to anything else happening in British indie music at the time. The indie bands of the early 90's were a collection of sad sack C86 hangers on, Smiths wannabes, and Madchester dropouts, most of whom have been completely forgotten about today. Shoegaze was underappreciated but was (and still isn't) the type of music to light a fire under the charts. American grunge bands were the rage, and countless twee British acts were blown away into irrelevance as a result. Suede cut through the boredom like a lightning bolt, there was nobody even remotely like them, the music seemed to get better with each classic single release and their potential seemed limitless.
As a companion to this review, I plan to watch the band documentary "The Insatiable Ones" as soon as I can.
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