Suede, Dog Man Star

Suede, Dog Man Star is an absolute masterpiece of an album and everytime I play it I rue the day that Bernard Butler walked out of the recording studio because of the greatness the Anderson/Butler songwriting partnership could have continued to achieve. This record is a slice of melodramatic glam rock and features songs about paranoid futuristic nightmares (We Are the Pigs, Daddy's Speeding), love and longing (Heroine, The Wild Ones, The 2 Of Us, Black or Blue, Still Life), urban noir (This Hollywood Life, The Asphalt World) and downright foot-stomping, arse-slapping, trashy rock (New Generation).

Whereas Suede's first album was a statement of intent, featuring a couple of filler tracks, Dog Man Star is a masterpiece of concept, featuring Butler's trademark guitar parts, Anderson's unusual descriptive lyrics and a haunting and all-pervading sense of loss, longing and trauma, perhaps enhanced by the breakdown in the songwriting partnership as well as the breakdown in Anderson's already-turbulent relationship with his girlfriend.

It's a beautiful record which deserves a listen as more than a piece of Britpop nostalgia.