well, what can i say. later, look you see, has apparently become "later" with regards to my thoughts, musings or if you will review of a day of release album what i nearly missed out on. in fairness, i did make some comments back during the week of release on this one; with this one being The Blue Hour by Suede.
not that it matters too much, but there is reason or two for the delay in writing. yes, true, much of the number of reasons i could offer are time constraints. but, overall, or whilst it may be small in the grand scheme of things it is important to me - i wished to gather my thoughts and write all of this as best as i could. that would be for one of two reasons. either i have been duped by one of the most brazen efforts of taking refuge in audacity or, as i would rather think to be the case, this is one of the "most important" (whatever that means) recorded albums to be made, certainly at least as far as meanderings in that direction in this century go.
and no, i am not what you would call a "Suede obsessive". for several years my thoughts on them ranged from "pretty good" to more or less not troubling to listen to them. it is only "now", as in the two or so / and a bit years since the superb Night Thoughts, that i have come to accept that they were there all along, whether i was aware or not, whether i wanted them or not.
if you have somehow got through that rather clumsy set of paragraphs then it is possible you'd want a brief sort of overview of the album before you decide whether you care to read on or not. well, in that regard it does what it says on the box - the record is just south of an hour long, and it is blue in tone.
this record is a "concept album" in its purest form. by that i mean perhaps a story is being told, maybe it isn't, but a thematic mood prevails across all of the music which leaves you with the inescapable sense of being informed. comparisons are tricky, and something that i say i try to avoid but end up doing. not in musical or lyrical style or content, then, but think of the apparent confessional nature of Marillion's Misplaced Childhood and the (all bar one song, Sidewinder) focus on loss across REM's Automatic For The People, then you kind of have the direction here. but, all very much with the voice, the emotions and not so much what you would expect but what you would accept as being the continuation of how and what Brett Anderson and Suede have to say.
musically, the orchestral works that have always appeared on Suede's albums unmistakably come to the fore. i suppose this is perhaps an extension of Night Thoughts, but mostly it would seem its required to achieve the quasi gothic, crisp (hello, Faye) English / British countryside as it experiences autumn into winter required so as to deliver the tone wanted. and, yes, it really works. very well.
yes, indeed, that is what was on the go in the window of HMV during the week of release of The Blue Hour by Suede. no, no promotion of either that record or much in the way of music, with them instead electing to celebrate - and encourage the purchase of - one of the poorest Star Wars films ever to be made. that there are no so many options for the title one now cannot easily just name the worst Star Wars film ever should, you would think, be setting alarm bells off somewhere, but that's not for this post.
earlier in this post i mentioned i wanted so much to get what i say right, and yet i cannot feel that this is a clumsy, meandering mess of trying to write it. inevitable, perhaps, but let me press on.
i am not sure what to say of the lyrics. here, across The Blue Hour, we feel very far removed from the hedonistic sex and drugs fuelled joys of, say, Animal Nitrate and Metal Mickey. there's many, many wonderful lines across the songs, but there's also no simplistic, instantly accessible and sheer pure pop classic stuff as the was in, for instance, Trash and The Beautiful Ones. further, as was (i think) the case with night Thoughts, we are all finally free of Brett using cellophane and plastic as metaphors.
but, here's the thing. all of The Blue Hour feels inexplicably informed by the examples i have given, and beyond. the best way i can think to describe it all is that 2018 Brett Anderson got to go back to 1993 Brett Anderson, tell him tales of the future, let that Brett Anderson go through one quarter of a century (!) informed by it all, touched by a sense of desolate loss rather than assured acceptance.
growing up, maybe, you might call all of that. and in listening to it, possibly for the third or forth time i do not recall which, i became increasingly aware of it being of relevance to me too. no, not something daft or "meta" like "gee, i think Brett is speaking directly to me here", rather more i all of a sudden became aware of how he, Suede, have soundtracked my life - maybe mapped better. going back 25 years, the hedonism, the impulses, the sex, the drugs, the rock and the roll, the quasi maturing, the ageing, the ups, the downs, the lower than down, the resilience, the wish to feel, the where are we now is we are here now.
well, i did make it clear that i was struggling to find the right words to say all that i wished to say of The Blue Hour, and it feels most decidedly like i have in fact not found them. but maybe i have, you know, if to someone somewhere out there any of the above makes the slightest bit of sense. hopefully at least one of you will work out what it is i am trying to say, and go right ahead and articulate it better.
this is of little relevance to what i am saying, and i know quoting he who i am about to quote is about the least fashionable thing in the world, but i always love to throw this one in when i can. off Brett Anderson, Morrissey (yes, that one) once said "he seems continuously angry at God for not making him Angie Bowie". for some reason this has never failed to make me smile and laugh; if anyone ever had said any such thing about me i'd wear that one as a badge of honour.
at the least, then, HMV gave "pride of place" to the Suede album in the theoretical music section of the store. apparently Suede was "trending" that week, and rather thankfully HMV remembered they are British and that Suede are British (London, actually, since legally in the USA they are called The London Suede), and so had their album sat above the big selling one off of the frequently retiring Eminem.
would HMV have encouraged any increased sales, for them and indeed (The London) Suede, if the record had been advertised in the window? perhaps. in retrospect, i am not certain that Suede are now a band that inspire impulse purchases when one strolls past a window and observes a new recording is available.
on that note, a "Smiths phenomenon" has befallen the album in the charts. for those unaware of this "Smiths phenomenon", well, it really goes back to the days when the charts were proper and based on sales alone, not "streams" or other free listens. anyway, what happened when The Smiths (back in the 80s) released a new record, be it single or album, the (we) fans rushed to buy it either on the day of release or during its first week of availability, wishing and wanting to hear it as soon as possible. this caused the record to crash into the upper (northern) end of the charts. but, then it seemed everyone who wanted the record had bought it, and so it crashed south and out of the charts the very next week. to this end, if i have observed correctly, The Blue Hour by Suede entered the charts at a respectable enough number 5 position, but by week 2 was out of the top 40. oh.
if i am right about this record - and let us hope i am - then time shall be kinder to this album that the charts appear to have been. the mood, the tone and sound all to me suggest this is the album one should have a listen to on one of those cold, long and frequently lonely nights of the northern hemisphere window. but just how many, like me, still consider a fine evening to be just to listen to music? as in, do it and just that, with no other distractions. perhaps the passion for that will return, and The Blue Hour will be appreciated for what its.
so, the short, quasi executive summary of all of this is give this album a try, for it is superb. bar something like my much hoped for Christmas With The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses coming out, this is surely going to end up being my "album of the year" as and when i get around to doing that sort of post.
if you have read all of this, thank you indeed for sticking with it and trying to work out what it is i am attempting to say...........
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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