Coming Up (album)

Background

After the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler and the lack of commercial success with Dog Man Star and its singles, Suede were being somewhat dismissed by the British music press. Determined to bring Suede back into the mainstream, frontman Brett Anderson decided that the sound of the new album would be the complete opposite of Dog Man Star. "I think the next album will be quite simple, actually. I'd really like to write a straightforward pop album. Just ten hits."

The guitarist to replace Butler was the 17-year-old Richard Oakes, who beat 500 other applicants for the role. Instead of applying for the job like everyone else, Oakes was auditioned on the strength of an impromptu demo tape he sent to the Suede fan club. Despite Oakes's smooth integration into his new role and the band's rejuvenated spirit, Anderson was tired of touring and was keen to get back in the studio with his new songwriting partner. He recalled: "it was becoming really not much fun touring an album that wasn't made by the band." At the time Suede were fatigued with being on tour, a feeling, which was reflected in the b-side, "Have You Ever Been This Low".

Recording

To prepare for its recording, the band had immersed themselves in T. Rex's 1972 album The Slider and its successor, Tanx. Long-time producer Ed Buller would be producing the album again. In an interview on the eve of the album's release, Anderson stated: "I wanted it to be a complete turnover from the last album, which was very dark and dank... I wanted it to be communicative and understandable." Bass player Mat Osman recalls how Buller was keen on making the album simple. "He was really keen on using all those devices: the big repeated end, the handclaps, the straightforward chorus, make it big and obvious." Two songs which made it onto Coming Up had already been written in the early days of Suede. "Lazy" and "By the Sea" were two of Anderson's own compositions. "By the Sea" was actually written when Suede were recording their first album, which is why the songs opening line is strikingly similar to "So Young".

Unlike the tense and chaotic recording of Dog Man Star, which according to Anderson was mostly written by post, the new material was far more celebratory in both its development and execution. As oppose to the previous album which followed a stringent pattern of Butler composing music for Anderson's lyrics, Coming Up was a more collaborative project. Anderson stated: "Coming Up was more of a meritocracy – if something was good enough, it didn’t matter what the source was." Songs such as "By the Sea" and "She" required the use of keyboards. Faced with the problem as to how to play them live, Suede recruited Simon Gilbert's cousin Neil Codling, who made his debut at a fan-club gig in January 1996.

Music

The musical sound of Coming Up is more accessible than previous album Dog Man Star. Its singles were much more successful than those of their second LP, while the lyrical content concerns the band's disaffection at the mid-90s hedonistic, celebrity-obsessed culture; "Beautiful Ones" and "She" are caricatures of British yuppies, celebrities and heroin-chic models. "Beautiful Ones" was originally titled "Dead Leg" after Osman threatened to give Oakes a dead leg if he was unable to write a top ten single. According to Anderson, "The Chemistry Between Us" is about "the emptiness of it all", when it comes to taking drugs with strangers who have no common ground other than being high on drugs. The main refrain of the song is "Class A, Class B, is that the only chemistry between us."

Release and reception

Coming Up was a commercial success, removing many fans' doubts about Suede's new line-up. It spawned five top 10 singles in the UK and charted at number one on the UK Albums Chart. The album proved a hit in Europe and Asia and sold 1.5 million copies worldwide and was certified as platinum by the BPI in January 1997. The lead single "Trash" was their joint top charting single along with "Stay Together", reaching number three on the UK Singles Chart, however it outsold the latter making it their biggest selling single ever.

Reviews were generally positive and seemed to respect Suede's new pop sound. James Delingpole of the Daily Telegraph wrote: "Coming Up is their defiant reminder of what made Suede so special... If Dog Man Star was Diamond Dogs, then this is Suede's Ziggy Stardust – extravagant, steeped in glam and unashamedly poppy." Roy Wilkinson of Select magazine rated the album four out of five, calling it: "a wondrous pop album, simultaneously immediate and full of scope, a lovely, charming mix of absolute beauty and the thrillingly awkward." Andy Gill of The Independent, however was a harsh critic of the album. In contrast to the previous album, he wrote: "two albums and one guitarist later, they sound utterly mined out," he added: "in many ways, it's a step back from Dog Man Star – and their manner grows increasingly obnoxious." Caroline Sullivan of The Guardian gave the album four stars out of five. She felt that even despite the album's simplistic composition of "vibrant three-minute howla-longs," it still manages to avoid being too mainstream and incomparable to rivals Oasis and Blur. Citing "She", "Starcrazy" and "The Chemistry Between Us" as the standout tracks, she concluded that Suede "deserve permanent prominence in the English rock pantheon."

Despite its success in the UK and Europe, Coming Up did not win an audience in America, partially because of its later release in April 1997 and partially because Suede only supported it with a three-city tour. According to Nielsen SoundScan, Coming Up has sold about 40,000 copies in the US as of 2008.

Critical reception, however was very positive stateside. Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle wrote: "Oakes more than fills the boots of his predecessor, and the new CD is a pure pop pleasure, thick and sinewy and terribly, cooly [sic] British." Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club had similar views, saying: "The London Suede should, by all laws of musical logic, have disappeared by now. However, after surviving a name change, the replacement of co-songwriter/guitarist Bernard Butler with an obscure 17-year old, and more than a few changes in musical fashion, the band has returned with a third album that's more consistent and accessible than anything it's produced before." James Hunter of SPIN gave the album 8 out of 10. He wrote: "the band pushes its case by ascending to heights of absolutely lucid songcraft that, in this often fuzzy era, feels exhilarating." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic rated Coming Up 4 out of 5, he noted the album's simplicity, saying: "As a statement of purpose, Coming Up is unimpeachable. Though it doesn't break any new ground for the band — unless you count the new-found sense of optimism — it's a remarkable consolidation and crystallization of Suede's talents."

Suede embarked on a short tour of the US and Canada in May 1997 to support the album, but fell upon bad fortune when their equipment got stolen after playing a sold out show in Boston, Massachusetts on 17 May.

Legacy

In December 1996, The Face, Melody Maker, Q, Hot Press, and Select listed Coming Up as one of the ten greatest albums of the year, while Mojo and NME ranked it 12th.

Two years later, Q readers voted Coming Up the 36th greatest album of all time. In the book, All Time Top 1000 Albums by Colin Larkin, Coming Up was ranked at number 195. In 1999, American music critic Ned Raggett ranked Coming Up as the 42nd greatest album of the 1990s. The following year, Q ranked the album the 96th greatest British album ever. In 2014, The Village Voice ranked Coming Up at number 10 in its list of the 10 best Britpop albums.