I'm an Oasis nut, first heard them in 94, I'm not interested in other bands.
They shaped my 1990's
- Gareth Tideswell
"In 1995 I started college and started to see a whole new world. Those people with the rainbow hair, those people with piercings, the girls dressing like boys and boys dressing like girls, the very people that my parents had told me were scary and dangerous, those people were now my friends. I was having conversations with them, learning from them, politically, intellectually, emotionally, and it was from this moment that I started to develop my own character, my owns thoughts and opinions."
-Vicky Darvill
"It was the music that started it for me. Followed closely by their androgynous image. I used to go round the second hand shops and look for men's shirts and suits like Brett's. If Brett could wear blouses like me then I could wear suits like him. We weren't accepted by the majority of people. We were seen as outsiders but it felt amazing to be part of the Suede army where people understand you and you could be who you wanted to be."
- Samantha Hand
"I remember seeing the band (and particularly Brett) in Melody Maker (I used to nick my sister's) and just totally falling in love with his look. The bob falling over one eye, the lacy tops and 70s shirts. I don't think I thought about androgyny as a concept. think androgyny is somewhere between male and female. What I liked about these guys is they didn't look like girls at all really, they weren't trying to be feminine, they were just confident and different and very sexy with it. The music sounded fierce and seedy and I was immediately desperate to see them live."
- Catriona Gray
"It was seen as dangerous and different and playing at preconceived notions of gender identity. "
-Sarr Brie Narr
"It was in 93. Fell in love instantly with both the music and the imagery. Suede completely shaped who I wanted to be and how I wanted to dress. Definitely, it made me feel part of something, especially at fan clubs shows. I saw all the lad culture going on around me and felt very proud that I didn't follow that crowd."
- Dan Wright
"The androgyny (in both music and aesthetic) was a huge part of what first got me interested in Suede - though more specifically the combination of androgyny and 'fuck you'. It's easy to connect that automatically with 'glamour' and although they were glamorous in the broad sense I think it was also the griminess, the second hand clothes, the realness that appealed too. My interest was piqued by the look but sealed by the music.."
- Susan Smu
"I hated the whole Blur v Oasis thing and felt both bands were a bit clichéd and stupidly laddish and in Oasis's case very basic. I wasn't very laddish so they didn't speak to m. I guess I was starting to feel like an outsider and a bit melancholic as a teen and Suede spoke to me on that level. "
-Jeremy Tennant.
"I first heard suede in 1993; 16 yrs old, awkward, uncomfortable, miserable misfit. A cool kid stuck a headphone in my ear and i didn't know what it was. It was Animal Nitrate and i was awestruck. This noise in my head was shockingly different, it felt outrageous, dirty, articulate, decadent, sneering, beautiful. Home. Oasis and Blur were so predictable, i couldn't stand it. I wanted daring, sleazy, sexy, London, flamboyant, addicting and i got in spades from Suede. I still adore them but the 90's were the best, i do still, at 39, have a bad weakness for terylene shirts, floppy fringes and sharp cheek bones!!"
- Cathrine McRoberts
"I listened to oasis , it made me move to Manchester, drink loads and get in loads of trouble - they still make me feel that way so can't play them before going out"
-Jeff Iles
"I wasn't ready for them when they first appeared! It wasn't until 1994 when I had evolved a bit that I fell in love with the 2nd album 'Dog Man Star'. To me it wasn't the androgyny that interested me, but the dark swooping glamour, darkness and maybe a little seedyness even that spoke to me. it wasn't about having the perfect hair, perfect life, body etc. The album has never left me. I had never heard an album that I related to like that before, or since!"
-Emma Wood Hasler
“It was weird with Suede because we didn’t really have any roots. We’re all from different suburban shit holes and it was really strange to find out this gang was there; it just wasn’t from the same place. It was this vague scattering of freaks, equidistant from each other around Britain.”
- Mat Osman
"Looking back on that period, before I discovered Suede I thought not fitting in made me a failure. Suede were the first people that opened a window to an alternative to that small town attitude: that there's a place for all of us if we look for it, that it's a huge and diverse world out there and that exploring and being comfortable with who we are is much more important than trying to bend to someone else's normality."
-James Youngjohns
"Being gay, their imagery, their femininity and provocative stance just did it for me. whereas other so called 'gay acts' just didn't. Over the years they were the soundtrack my love life, the 'London' years and many post-night comedowns. You have to remember that at the time the white heat of attention they had quickly went to Oasis and Blurb (intentional), all laddy, beer machismo - Suede were the antidote for all the freaks and outsiders."
-Leighton Carter