Why Brett Anderson called one Suede album a “huge f*ck up”
When a band has enjoyed the longevity of Suede, its difficult to have endured the trials and tribulations of the music industry without the odd regret. After the turn of the century, Suede found themselves in complete turmoil following the unexpected departure of keyboardist Neil Codling.
Additionally, frontman Brett Anderson had been fighting a crack addiction and had recently got himself clean when they began work on 2002’s A New Morning. “Cocaine is child’s play”, he told The Observer a day before the album’s release. “After a while, it didn’t give me enough of a buzz, so I got into crack. I was a crack addict for ages; I was a smack addict for ages. It’s part of my past, really. I’m not far enough away to be talking about it. It’s only recently I’ve been able to say the word ‘crack’.”
The recording process for the album was an elongated experience and took almost two years to complete. A New Morning should never have taken this long to make, and the fact it did speaks volumes about the mess Suede found themselves in.
Sobriety typically affects how an artist creates, whether it be for better or worse. With Anderson, it put him on a different journey and made him re-evaluate his artistic purpose. His sobriety collided with the vision of the rest of the band.
The album wasn’t met with completely scathing reviews, but it wasn’t held on the group’s previously earned pedestal either. Suede were creatively drained, and A New Morning was concrete proof they needed to part ways. Although their relationship wasn’t in tatters, their spark had gone, and on December 13th, 2003, Suede waved goodbye to a sold-out crowd at London’s Astoria. When they announced their split, Anderson said: “There has been speculation about record sales and chart positions, but the bottom line is I need to do whatever it takes to get my demon back.”
Seven years later, Suede announced a “one-off” gig at London’s Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust, which snowballed into a full-blown reunion, and they are still active today. If it wasn’t for A New Morning and their break, it’s almost certain Suede wouldn’t be going strong in 2022. Anderson later described the album as a “huge fuck-up” to NME and admitted: “A New Morning was the weakest one [Suede album]. It was a real mistake, releasing that record.”
The frontman also told Filter in 2011: “The fact that we made this album is one of the things that I regret most about Suede’s career. The band would have been loved more if we had stopped making music before this. When we made it, we were very confused about what we wanted the band to be and where we wanted it to go. There was a part of me that wanted to make an electronic album and part of me that wanted to make a folk album. So we combined those elements and made a very confused record.”
Although it’s the weakest album in Suede’s arsenal, it’s also a critical release that changed the band’s history.
