Suede - Coming Up [ENHANCED CD]

Japanese edition of the new album featuring thesingle 'Trash' and the bonus track 'Young Men'. Other 9 trx:'Filmstar', 'Lazy', 'By The Sea', 'She', 'Beautiful Ones','Starcrazy', 'Picnic By The Motorway', 'The ChemistryBetween Us' and 'Saturday Night'. Album Description

Suede's best album *

Soaring melodies, amazing vocals, gritty guitars and tight drums intertwine in some of the best pop songs ever written. Every song is great. This is easily one the greatest albums of the 90's. The melodies are so strong, it's really beyond words. This is classic "Brit Pop" at it's peak. Buy this cd, and play it loud. October 20, 2006

Original brit pop

My favorite album since I was in high school . Every song is absolutely cool. Great for brit pop fans! October 10, 2005

Never has mainstream success sounded so good

After the gloomy and sprawling sounds of "Dog Man Star", and the new addition of guitarist Richard Oakes and keyboardist Neil Codling, most were concerned on how the "new Suede" would fare without departed guitarist Bernard Butler.

When the first single, "Trash", hit the airwaves, all doubts went out through the window. Few bands have the ability to change their image and sounds as rapid and effectively as Suede can. Richard Oakes fills in nicely for Butler here with more simplistic, riff-based guitar work that contrasts nicely with Anderson's nasally vocals. Codling also help fills the band's sound with bubbly synths that keeps things flowing.

Featuring five top 10 singles and five other songs equally worthy of being singles, "Coming Up" is how mainstream records should be done. Normally I would give this album a 4 star because in respect to intelligence, this album is sleazy and dumb fun which was missing in the first two classic albums.

It gets 5 stars, however, because as a stand alone pop record, it pleases in every way. The up-tempo tracks like "Beautiful Ones", "Filmstar", "Starcrazy", and "Lazy" are all drenched in catchy guitar riffs, singalong choruses, and thumping bass lines that will have you dancing through it all.

"Coming Up" was the high that Suede needed to bring them the attention they deserved. Sure, "Starcrazy" and "The Chemistry Between Us" may not be lyrically thoughtful, but the music and tone help carry it.

To keep things organic, the bouncy numbers are matched with equally stunning ballads like "By the Sea", "Saturday Night" and "Picnic by the Motorway", that will continue to tug on your emotional strings just as the previous releases did.

Suede did what other Britpop bands failed to do in the mid-90's, and that is to keep the public guessing and the fanbase enthralled with releases that defied their presumed image.

To sum things up, if you like pop, there is a good amount of it here, and chances are this will be the perfect soundtrack to your emotional highs and lows. August 7, 2005

You can always come back to this album

I'm not even really sure that this is a 5 star CD, probably a 4, but because it was released almost 10 years ago and I still pop it in every once in a while and still sing along to it, that had to give it an extra point.

Before getting into the music, one of the things I love most about this CD is the cover artwork. It looks like a university project, kind of hastily put together, but with a certain amount of appeal.

If you didn't have any idea what direction this CD was going to go in, "Trash" pretty much sets the tone. This is about as opposite of DogmanStar as you can get. While a few of the faster songs tend to blend together (why were "Filmstar" and "Lazy" put back to back?), they are written well. But let's be honest, the strength of this album rests in the ability of Suede to play those faster tracks and then stick a fabulous ballad in the middle, like they do with "By the Sea".

The closing track, "Saturday Night" was also a good fit for that position and if you've seen the video, that was also well done.

Although they may have more critically acclaimed releases, this one is my favourite, not because of its radio-friendly nature, but just because the whole album is worth listening to, something Suede has had a bit of trouble with on their previous recordings. June 15, 2005

Entertainment!

"Coming Up"is Suede's most single oriented album,every song(even the dazzling and longer"Picnic by the Motorway"and"The Chemistry between Us")seems to have been designed to be a hit single in the vein of the early 90's Anderson/Butler classics so it's no wonder 5 tracks from here charted impressively in the UK.

Being such a remarkable,song oriented,record that even contains one of their very best compositions-"Filmstar"and plenty of other glam punk standouts,there's only one thing preventing this from being an album as awe inspiring as their first two-Bernard Butler was no longer in the band.

And that made a huge difference in the band's sonics.Richard Oakes thrashes throughout the record in an extremely competent glam rock fashion but rarely does he transcend the limitations he faces(probably only in the spacial shift of "Filmstar's" chorus and on"Picnic by the motorway's"break does he approach B.Butler's genius).

Bernard Butler's Johnny Marr meets Andy Bell meets Marc Bolan guitar playing was an essential part of the early 90's Suede sound and that's why even if they remained an interesting band throughout the remainder of their career they never again sounded as vital.

Still there's no denying how entertaining an album "Coming Up"is. June 14, 2005

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