Suede's Second Act: my top 10 songs, 2013-26

The other day, a blog post was shared to The Insatiable Ones counting down the writer's ten favourite songs from Suede's glorious second career. A debate ensued and a commenter remarked that you could probably ask everyone and never get the same list. That got me thinking: which songs make it onto my list? It's not easy to narrow down, and even harder to rank. I wrote this list a few days ago and I'm not confident I agree with it even as I type this out, it's so subject to change based on mood and which songs I've seen the band play live most recently. So, below is my best effort, my top 10 favourite Suede songs of the last fifteen years or so, with some honourable mentions at the end. 

 

10. The Sadness In You, The Sadness In Me (2022, from the She Still Leads Me On EP)

This song is so packed with hooks that it's crazy to think that it's a b-side, but then Suede were always good at putting astonishing songs on the b-sides of their singles (see: Sci-Fi Lullabies). It has a bridge that could be a chorus, a groovy bassline and a vocal line that starts out almost spoken and builds to a gorgeous soaring thing. It struck me immediately and I'm not alone - it's a fan favourite and after three years of begging, they finally gave it a live airing as part of the Southbank Takeover last September. The band have said that it's hard to play, that the recording is bad, that it's missing something, but those are lame excuses. This song is massive.

9. I Don't Know How To Reach You (2016, Night Thoughts)

I will admit it: Night Thoughts is my least favourite Suede album. I even prefer the disowned pre-split A New Morning. It's in in-between territory for me, not enough choruses to keep me excited, but not experimental enough to intrigue either. For that reason, I Don't Know How To Reach You is the sole Night Thoughts pick from my list.
The theme of the album is the anxieties around being a new parent, which is largely uninteresting to me, but IDKHTRY works for me when viewed alongside Brett's memoir, Coal Black Mornings. He claims that he initially started writing so that his son could read a bit of his family history one day, and the book explores Brett's relationship with his own father and the way that influences his relationship with his own son. The lyrics here - "I bought you those pretty things but you gave them back, and now I don't know how to reach you" - could be about a romantic relationship, but I always interpret it through the prism of the familial: that failure to relate to his own father, and the fear that the son he dedicates himself so fully to might grow up to regard him with that same distance. It's always a highlight of the live set when it comes out, Brett often sinking to his knees to perform the emotive closing section - "I never thought it would happen to me". Stunning.

 8. Chalk Circles / Cold Hands (2018, The Blue Hour)

Are these two songs? Arguably, yes, but it's my list and I'll combine them if I want to. This is my favourite piece of 'experimental Suede', from their most out-there album. Chalk Circles paints the sort of scene familiar to Suedeworld - 'ringroads, stairways, roundabouts', even in this album that's ostensibly about the horror of the countryside, we're never far from the motorway. From there we descend into a menacing chant more akin to 1994's Introducing The Band than anything the band have done since, before the shorter piece segues into the more traditional banger Cold Hands. It's claustrophobic, terrified; Brett sounds like he can barely get the verses out, there are too many words that need to fit in before we get to the big Suedey chorus. Richard's guitar rings out with an urgent tone that matches the folk-horror dread of the words. Exhilarating, a song that I'm gutted I missed out on hearing live. 

7. Barriers (2013, Bloodsports)

The first new Suede single in a decade, a song that Suede cared about enough to relaunch their career with and for some reason immediately stopped playing live. There's something about that opening guitar part and Simon's steady drums that just says 'we're back, you're home', a warm hug of an intro. I don't have any deep lyrical analysis, there's no particular line or performance that makes this one meaningful to me, I just think it's a forgotten classic. 

6. She Still Leads Me On (2022, Autofiction)

It's hard for me to be objective about She Still Leads Me On. This is more than a song to me, it's like a sister. My first Suede gigs were on the Blue Hour tour, but the first Suede album that I was invested in as a fan was Autofiction. I was there for the roll-out, sat in front of the TV for the premiere of this song, the livestream from the last gig of the European Tour.  I was there at the video shoot, invited by the fanclub that I had just begun to dip my toe into, there at the Crushed Kid secret show, there at Rough Trade the day the album came out. I've listened to this song so many times that it's hard to hear it, and I'm often so spent by the time it rolls round in the setlist that all I can do is clap along and take a moment to stare up at the ceiling of whatever theatre or park or club I'm in. 
She Still Leads Me On is another song borne out of the reflection Brett did when writing his memoirs. This one is in memory of his mother who died many years ago and his everlasting love. He sings about being a child, about the way that she lives on in his thoughts, while Richard makes the loveliest, most uplifting sound with his guitar. It's hard not to be overcome with joy at that 'and I loved her' pre-chorus, no matter how many times I hear it.

 

5. Personality Disorder (2022, Autofiction)

As with SSLMO, I find it difficult to tell whether Autofiction is my favourite album, or whether it just means the most to me because it facilitated so many of my most cherished friendships and memories. Whichever one it is, I'm certain that Personality Disorder is an outstanding song. It's spiky and abrasive, spoken in the verses, shouted in the chorus, crooned in the middle-section. Lyrically the verses deal with death again, an acknowledgement that 'our lives too will pass and fade like this moment'. The chorus doesn't feel like the same song, really, doesn't have the depth, but who cares when it sounds this good? I loved it as a permanent part of the Autofiction live set, and I love it now as an occasional visitor in the Antidepressants set, particularly for the way Neil echoes the chorus vocal. 

4. Manipulation (2018, The Blue Hour boxset)

People sometimes ask me why I keep going back to see Suede and, if that person is a fan, I tell them about the setlist at my first show: Dawn Chorus, Roadkill, The Next Life, and Manipulation. At that point I was thrilled to hear Animal Nitrate and Killing Of A Flash Boy, and had no idea how lucky I was to hear Manipulation in particular. Thank God for the person on Tumblr who I stole the mp3 from so I knew the song! 
Manipulation points the way towards Autofiction; a song from The Blue Hour session that could never have been at home on that album. It's short, fast, announcing itself with a guitar slide into mayhem. The lyric is ripped from the Depeche Mode school of sexual push-and-pull - 'if I bend to you, will you bend to me?' - who's manipulating who? It's incredibly exciting, devastating in its brevity but perfectly formed, a muscle I wish Suede would flex more often.

3. Tides (2018, The Blue Hour)

Tides didn't rank in my top three when I first got into The Blue Hour; it appears at the point around two-thirds of the way through the album where I usually need something sharp to pick me up, and this isn't that so I think it initially passed me by. Hearing Tides live is a totally different experience and that's why it now tops my Blue Hour chart. The song starts small - a pretty arpeggiated riff from Richard, a subdued vocal from Brett. Then, with each verse, things get bigger and bigger, like the tide itself crashing in until everything is deafening and huge and intense, the music threatening to swallow you up. 
Lyrically, I had an epiphany while the band were performing it last, in Edinburgh in February. 'Clutching at debris', 'waving at distant planes', 'riding a wave, it's dragging me under'... wait a minute, this is The Ninth Wave by Kate Bush! It's no secret that the band are influenced by Hounds Of Love, in fact Brett appears in that BBC4 documentary gushing over that side of vinyl, and I'm a little embarrassed to have taken so long to notice. 

2. Dancing With The Europeans (2025, Antidepressants)

How many times can a man fit the word 'river' into a verse? About half a dozen, it turns out. And it turns out that it doesn't matter how silly a verse's lyrics are if you follow it up with a big beautiful chorus like this one. Dancing With The Europeans is euphoric, from the pretty intro riff to the ringing out of the final notes. It sounds like sunshine, like optimism, like all the things that Suedeworld pretends not to be. There are shades of The Cult, of Echo And The Bunnymen, of all the post-punk that Richard has poured into the last couple of albums. It's hard not to grin when the band's lighting director switches the lighting from white into colour during the line about blue and yellow lights. Brett claims it's not about losing our place in the EU - this is about a really good gig he had in Spain, not Brexit, he says - but he also says that sometimes he doesn't realise what the songs are really about until a lot later, so I'll wait for him to catch up on this one. 
Sure, this is another Suede song that I'm biased about. I was there at Bush Hall with both my ear and my phone's microphone pressed to the stage door as the room was soundchecked. I was inside that boiling hot venue sweating with my best friends. I saw one of the best gigs I've ever seen that night even though the setlist was Suede's greatest hits plus Dancing With The Europeans four times. I got to wrap my arms around Brett, climb up on stage with my favourite band, see my stupid grinning face immortalised in the music video. But I stand by it - this is their best single in years.

1. Dirty Looks (2025, Antidepressants Deluxe Edition)

Wow, she's so edgy, picking a b-side as her favourite, you say, rolling your eyes. Maybe it's recency bias talking, but I really, really, really love this song. Dirty Looks takes everything I said about Manipulation and ramps it up even further, and I hope that this points the way to Suede 11 the way that Manipulation pointed to Suede 9. 
It's loud, it's fast, it's spiky, it's menacing, it's sexy. It sounds like the band doing something totally new, and yet somehow it feels like a successor to Moving from way back in 1993. "I'm glad I'm not your husband, I'm glad I'm not your wife" is "we are a boy, we are a girl" all grown up, and Brett yelps his way through every line like he's in a sweaty club about to have his lace blouse ripped from his body by a crowd of NME reading teenagers.
Most of my Suede friends were NME reading teenagers, but I was a Kerrang! reading one, spending most of my student years teetering on the edge of a circle pit trying not to fall in. That's what Dirty Looks sounds like to me: a circle pit waiting to happen, my years of Glassjaw albums and grainy footage of early AFI shows and straight-edge hardcore cassettes (though they would never claim that 'whenever you're pissed it's so nice'). 
Just thinking about this song makes my heart race. If I'm listening to the album, I'm playing this one twice. Suede, if you're listening, please can your 'noisy fucker' of an 11th album sound like this?

 

Honourable mentions:

On another day, any of these could edge their way into the chart, largely due to their live showings.

• For The Strangers (2013, Bloodsports): the intro sounds like the clouds parting and the sky opening up on a beautiful day, the same euphoric feeling I get from DWTE. Reminds me of hearing it live on the Coming Up tour, where all the strangers I saw on the barrier every day became friends I can't imagine my life without
• It Starts And Ends With You (2013, Bloodsports): I hear it live all the time but I'm never disappointed when it's in the set. Another song that brings me so much joy, I love doing the actions with Brett during the choruses
• Sabotage (2013, Bloodsports): I think all I need to say about this is - drums are good on this. I love the opening line too, though.
• The Only Way I Can Love You (2022, Autofiction): I think this was my initial favourite from the album, and I go between it and Personality Disorder. Right now it's sunk a little because I'm not sure about it as the encore to the current live set, but even saying that sounds silly when I know it means Brett singing 'I love you' while I hold his hand. Obviously 'I pretend I don't adore you, but I'd take a bullet for you' is an all-time great line.
• June Rain (2025, Antidepressants): the big power ballad of the new album, a little like Tides in the way it builds, a little like Personality Disorder in the acknowledgement of death. Another one where Brett likes to come and mingle with the crowd, which never hurts a song's chances. 

What's your top 10? If you read this, argue with me in the comments! 

Crushed Kid

 

Manchester Deaf Institute 6.9.22 - tour diary

1. I'm on my way to see ABBA Voyage and suddenly get a message from my Suede tour friends to keep the 5th and 6th free. Nobody knows why. Just keep those dates free.
2. Be in London on the 5th and/or Manchester on the 6th. Nobody knows why. Just be there. Brainstorm on the train home trying to figure out what I have on at work next week. Can I go to Manchester without having to take holiday. I get home and decide the answer is yes. Hotels and trains are procured.
3. I get out of the cinema and take my phone off airplane mode in the toilets. My phone has exploded with BABE HAVE YOU GOT A TICKET messages. I buy a ticket to see a band called Crushed Kid. My heart feels like it’s going to explode as I sit in the cubicle trying to remember my login details for a ticket site I haven’t used in years.
4. I bring forward my plans to dye my hair and make Suede-themed jewellery and finish embroidering Brett’s autograph onto my jacket. Everything is done by the end of the weekend.
5. Monday, I work an early shift so I can leave the office an hour early to travel to Preston. I can work from there, it’s only 35 minutes on the train to Manchester. I listen to four songs on repeat all the way - She Still Leads Me On, 15 Again, That Boy On The Stage, Shadow (of my former) Self. I spend the night unable to sleep in my crappy hotel room. I dream about Suede.
6. Tuesday morning, I get up early again and work another early shift so I can leave the office an hour early to travel to Manchester. I see photos and read reviews from London. It’s almost time. 
7. I arrive at Piccadilly station in my Metal Mickey t-shirt. I am powerwalking to the hotel so I can drop my things and speed to the venue. In the station, I walk past an elegant skinny character with long hair and black leather jacket. I smile at Neil Codling and wonder if he noticed me. 
8. I powerwalk from my hotel to the Piccadilly Gardens bus stops. I walk past a girl I was friends with a decade ago who I hoped never to see again. I’m going so fast that hopefully she didn’t have time to register me. The rain starts pouring as I approach the buses and I jump on the first one I see that is going my way. 
9. There are a couple of people outside the Deaf Institute and a lot more outside the Sandbar, the pub across the road. I say hi to the people at the door. I find my friends - we’re reunited for the first time since the Autofiction film shoot. 
10. Someone informs us that barriers have gone up outside the venue and we rush outside to join the queue. The rain starts again and we’re allowed inside to queue on the stairs. The toilets are wallpapered with Dolly Parton images and covered in graffiti. We’re all back together.
11. The doors open. The Deaf Institute auditorium is about the size of the living room in my parents’ house; there’s no barrier. My friend is pressed against the stage in front of Richard and I’m directly behind her, second row. The DJ plays 80s post-punk and I stare at Brett’s microphone stand five feet from me. 
12. Technicians tape down setlists, put out little bottles of water, check the guitars are ready. We wait (im)patiently for 8:30pm. 
13. Without stopping the music or dimming the lights, Simon, Richard, Mat and Neil saunter on stage. The crowd goes wild. Brett makes his own grand entrance. He’s wearing a white shirt. They launch into Autofiction. 
14. She Still Leads Me On live for real, not mimed for a music video. Brett’s voice amplified through a microphone that’s turned on and not just heard from beside me in the crowd, although the place is tiny enough that we’d have heard him without. 
15. Richard has four or five shirt buttons undone. Neil is dressed exactly as I saw him earlier. His hair is wavy at the front; he must have been caught in the rain too. 
16. Brett and I make eye contact for a second during one of the songs I haven’t heard yet. Personality Disorder, perhaps. I gaze up at him, reaching out for him. I can see my hand with its Portobello Road Market rings and homemade bracelets reaching for him in fan photos the next day. 
17. He kicks his bottle of water off the stage. It bounces off my friend’s face and lands on my chest. It stays between my feet for the rest of the set. Then in my bag for the rest of the night. Now it’s at home with me. After a couple of songs he complains to his technicians that they didn’t put enough water on stage for him. 
18. 15 Again, That Boy On The Stage, some new songs I’ve not heard before. Drive Myself Home is the most beautiful piano ballad, like By The Sea if it didn’t swell up into a pop song. Brett sings tenderly but keeps walking over and pointing at the monitor we’re pressed into. His pointing and facial expressions become increasingly angry. The cable is loose and he can’t hear himself.
19. Brett is drenched in sweat and his white shirt is translucent. I can just about reach him when he steps towards us. I can see every fleck of spit that comes out of his mouth when he’s singing passionately. He has been sticking his tongue out since he stepped on stage.
20. Shadow Of My Former Self becomes Shadow Self. The chorus sounds strange at its correct pitch after listening to the edited version so many times. This time next month, it’ll be the edited version that sounds strange.
21. What Am I Without You is a ballad in the style of theatre - an ‘I’m Going Home’ or a ‘People’ made Suede. Brett says he wrote the song for us, the audience, and that he’s also an audience, and that we want the same thing, he doesn’t know what it is but he knows we all want it. 
22. Finally he steps close enough during the final song for me to put a hand on his thigh. The lady next to me ushers me into her spot so I can move it to his stomach, his ribs. He is soaking wet and his sweat coats my fingertips as I press my hand against his body. 
23. The album ends and the band leaves. Richard shakes hands with a couple of fans in front of me. The smile on his face is a mile wide. Same goes for everyone else in the room. 
24. We’ve filed out to the stage door, mingling. Justin Welch from Elastica is driving the van. I’ll never get to see Elastica live so it’s nice to spot him in this context.
25. Brett and Simon are mingling with everyone. Brett makes lighthearted conversation, asks if everyone is happy, offers to put his signature on setlists and t-shirts. We all huddle together for the customary group photo. He says he has a feeling it’s going to be a good picture. 
26. We’re back in the Sandbar until closing time. Catching up on what we’ve just seen. Staring at each other wide-eyed, lucky, increasingly sleepy. Groups begin to split up - off to the hotel vs into the night. There’s McDonalds and Ubers and 5 hours of broken sleep.
27. Wednesday, I work an early shift so I can leave an hour early to get home. I’m sleepy, but happy. The Brett group photo appears in the morning, along with lots of other photos and reviews. My friend posts some of my photos and Suede share them on their Instagram. 
28. I get to the train station and find that my train is delayed for an hour. I’ll miss the last bus home. I hop on another train that is due in on the same minute my bus leaves. The bus company slides into my DMs to promise they’ll delay the bus by a couple of minutes if I rush to catch it, and I make it home. There’s a ticket in my letterbox for next weekend’s Suede concert. 

October 2018 Update

The last book I read...


Coal Black Mornings - Brett Anderson

Over the summer I read John Harris' Britpop book 'The Last Party' and came away with an interest in Suede, whose story makes up part of that book.  At around the same time, I was scrolling through the Edinburgh Book Festival programme and noticed that their singer, Brett Anderson, was going to be appearing to discuss his memoir, Coal Black Mornings.  I had to renew my library card to borrow the book, which I devoured over a few days and adored.  The book covers the story of Brett's young life, from his beginnings in a little council flat with his eccentric parents, through his school and university years, ending with him living in London and finally signing a record deal with Suede after years of being ignored by the music world.  He describes the book as being about failure, rather than the classic celebrity success memoir that we're all used to, and it's full of little details which ground him as a regular person with an extraordinary job, rather than as the otherworldly indie rock icon he can appear as in the press.  I'm too young to remember a lot of what he talks about youth-wise, but I'm enchanted by his tales of time spent living in London in the late 80s and early 90s, especially the treatment of his relationship with Justine Frischmann.
After finishing the book I went to the Festival and saw him talk about it (in a room full of Suede/Britpop people of his generation, that is, twice my age) and had him sign a copy for me, which I'm still a little starstruck about two months later.  I've heard that he's planning to release the next instalment of his story in a year's time and am patiently waiting for it to arrive.

The last movie I watched...

The Lost Boys

When I was 18, I saw The Lost Boys for the first time and then proceeded to watch it every other day for the rest of the summer.  I knew every line, every song, every piece of trivia about the making of the movie.  I wrote about it in film class, pointed to it when asked what my favourite movie was and was basically obsessed by it for a while.  It's been a few years now since I last saw it so last weekend I decided to put the DVD on and find out whether it still resonated with me, and I was pleased to find that I still love it just as much as I ever did.  Having recently watched Stranger Things, I saw parallels between that squad of monster-hunting kids and the vampire-slaying team of Sam and the Frog Brothers who used to irritate me but who I now see as endearing.  I was always drawn to Kiefer Sutherland's David and his vampire gang so that very first shot of them walking around on the boardwalk carousel still makes me shiver.  I still remember what happens but there were little details that had faded from my memory which made it feel like I was seeing it for the second or third time again.  Aesthetically it's still on point; there's the black leather motorbike gang vibe of the vampires, Star's hippy-Stevie-Nicks thing, and I even appreciate and kind of want to emulate the trendy 80s looks that Sam wears.  If there's anyone out there who hasn't had the pleasure of watching The Lost Boys yet, please stop reading and go do that right now!

On my turntable...

Elastica - Elastica

I've listened to this album more than any other over the last few months.  Again, I became interested in Elastica after reading The Last Party (and, to an extent, Coal Black Mornings) and they quickly became my favourite band of the Britpop era.  Their songs are short, fast, sexy and witty, and it doesn't make sense to me that they aren't universally beloved by young women in the same way that Hole or Paramore are.  I'm fairly certain that Justine Frischmann is the coolest woman in the world and it's a shame that they split at the beginning of the millennium because I really want to be down the front at every one of their shows, singing every word back to her.  They reissued this, their fastest-selling, Mercury-nominated debut album, on vinyl last year and I snapped up a cut-price copy on eBay from someone who said there was a flaw in the packaging that I haven't been able to find, so now I have it on my turntable at home, in my cassette walkman at work and on my iPod for those places in between so that I never have to be without it.

My Autumn playlist:

1. Stay Together - Suede
2. TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME - The 1975
3. Elastica - Elastica
4. Suede - Suede
5. Filmstar - Suede
6. Love Interest - Dear Boy
7. Four Out Of Five - Arctic Monkeys
8. Bizarre Love Triangle - New Order
9. I Wanna Be Adored - The Stone Roses
10. Parklife - Blur

Currently watching...

The Good Place

I'm a big fan of Michael Schur's past shows (The Office, Parks & Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), so The Good Place has been on my radar since it started in 2016.  I'm almost at the end of the first of three seasons and find it very charming.  It follows Eleanor (Kristen Bell) who arrives in the Utopian 'The Good Place' after her death, despite not having earned her spot there while on Earth, and her struggle to become a good person so she can escape being committed to 'The Bad Place' where she belongs.  The show is filled with charming supporting characters, like Eleanor's supposed soulmate-cum-teacher Chidi and her philanthropic neighbour Tahani, but my favourite character is Janet, the humanoid designed to deliver goods and information to the residents of the Good Place who isn't quite perfect.  If you like your sitcoms to be a little whimsical and surreal, you should definitely give this a try.

From my journal...

These are the pictures I've used to illustrate my bullet journal this week.  The mood is a little romantic, a little retro, more Valentines than Halloween and a good excuse for me to test out some of the red and pink washi tape patterns I've been saving.  

September shopping - so far

Here's how my current obsessions are manifesting themselves:

My vibe at the moment is very 90s mixed with modern internet goth.  I've started browsing through Wish and adding things to my basket throughout the month and then clicking 'Purchase' on the last day, which means that I get little surprise parcels from myself at the end of the following month.  The set of pins in the picture to the right are a Wish purchase, and so is the crystal necklace.  I'm disappointed with the necklace - it has a chip where the silver coating has come off and the 'crystal' part has kind of melted into the silver next to it which shows that it's definitely just plastic, plus it's much more translucent than I expected it to be.  However, it still reflects the light and I'll still wear it regularly.  I'm much happier with the pin set, I was worried that they would be really poorly made and illegible but they look just like the photo.  My favourites are the ghost and the 'Ugh.' heart which reminded me of The 1975's song of the same name.  I'm going to put the banner with "Sure. Fine. Whatever." on something I wear at work to point to when I can't be bothered answering someone's silly question. 
I found the Empire Records patch at Pie In The Sky in Edinburgh which has a wide range of patches, pins, band t-shirts and other cool stuff.  A lot of it is really pricey (they had some great Jarvis Cocker pins which were £8.50; other pins and patches in there are up to £20 each) but this one was £2.99 and will fit right in on my denim jacket which I've been embellishing all summer.  I was surprised to find it there because Empire Records is a totally underrated movie. 
They're all sitting on a checked background courtesy of some 'cosy' leggings I bought in Primark.  Their approach this season is apparently 'all tartan everything' - I'm not a fan of patterned trousers so I avoided those and went for the leggings instead, which I can wear under a skirt or short dress to keep warm this winter.

As everyone who knows me knows, I can't resist an armful of books, and I picked these ones up on two trips to my hometown charity shops.  Sylvia Plath is one of my favourite people of the 20th century; I've read The Bell Jar multiple times, along with her Letters Home and some of her poems, but I've never come across a copy of her Journals until now.  As much as I recognise her poetic genius, it's her letters and journal entries that enthral me the most - I don't believe there has been anyone who has written about the day-to-day experience of being a young woman as well as Plath did. 
I picked up the Oasis book to fulfil the '2 for 99p' offer that allowed me to take home the vintage copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I like Oasis but they aren't my favourite of the Britpop set (more on Britpop later); I get the feeling that the best book about them would be one that the Gallagher brothers took turns writing so that it had the maximum amount of petty sibling drama, but we'll see. 
Persepolis is different to my usual reading material in that it's a graphic novel but I've heard so many interesting things about it over the years that it feels like something I should get round to reading.  I'm also looking forward to devouring the Jim Morrison story in No One Here Gets Out Alive, which I've passed over so many times but finally decided to purchase.
Finally, I can't resist old Penguin copies of classic books, even if they're falling apart, which is why I came home with a 60s edition of Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I do already have a copy as part of a DH Lawrence compendium, but this paperback is going to be much easier to handle as long as I don't lose any pages!  I also picked up a 70s copy of Franny & Zooey in the hope that I enjoy it more than The Catcher In The Rye, which I thought was a little overrated.

Now on to my favourite band of the summer, Elastica.  Even though they were active from approx. 1993-2001, I've been obsessively devouring any Elastica material I can find over the last few months.  They are the most underrated and overlooked of the Britpop 'big five' despite being the coolest of the bunch - there weren't and still aren't enough bands with three cool girls up front.  I'm currently collecting their discography on vinyl so pictured are this month's acquisitions: the 7" of their single 'Connection' and a promotional soundsheet of 'Vaseline'.  I think the soundsheet is particularly cool - it's a US item similar to the flexidiscs that used to occasionally come free with magazines over here but pressed onto a sheet of acetate rather than being disc-shaped.  I've listened to the first Elastica album so many times this summer that I feel like I know every single second of it so it's cool to have found pressings of two of my favourite songs from it. 

To jump briefly back to clothes and from one set of iconic ladies to another, I picked up this blazer in Primark yesterday which, like most of the clothes in there at the moment, reminds me of the girls in 'Heathers'.  I took it into the dressing room expecting it to look terrible on me but instead I fell in love with it and will be wearing it to work all the time from now on.  I now have a conundrum though: do I go to work on October 31st dressed as Wednesday Addams or Veronica Sawyer??

Back to the music and the pile of CDs I've bought this month.  See what I mean when I said I had a 90s vibe going on at the moment? 
At the start of the summer I began reading the book 'The Last Party' by John Harris, which gives a history of the Britpop era and how it contributed to the election of Tony Blair.  The book covers Oasis, Blur, Suede and Elastica, which occasional mentions of Pulp, Menswear and a few other stars of the time.  I've been listening to Suede since I was about 6, when 'She's In Fashion' appeared amongst the boybands on a compilation I got free with a magazine.  Their self-titled debut album is what I've been listening to on the rare occasions that I'm not playing the Elastica album and this month I felt ready to graduate to their 1994 follow-up, Dog Man Star.  Unfortunately, the only song on it that really resonates with me is the beautiful 'The Wild Ones', so I probably won't spend much time with it before moving on to the next album in their discography.  (A Suede side-note that I have to mention - their singer Brett Anderson wrote the most wonderful coming-of-age memoir, Coal Black Mornings, this year and I got to meet him at the Edinburgh Book Festival last month. It was magical.) 
I'm almost ready to graduate to the 2nd Elastica album too, but not before listening to their 6 Track EP which came out just before.  They changed their line-up a lot between the two so I'm interested to see how the music sounds.  I have, however, listened to Weekend Swingers, which is a bootleg I picked up on eBay.  It includes a 1994 festival performance, 2 of their Peel Sessions and some other demos and live bits and pieces.  I was worried that the quality was going to be bad but thankfully the sound is really good and so is the live show that makes up the first half of the disc - I wish I could time travel to see them play!
It was while I was browsing the Elastica section of eBay that I came across the soundtrack to Gregg Araki's 'Nowhere', a film I've written about before on the blog that is one of my favourite obscure movies.  I had no idea that both Elastica and Suede had songs on the soundtrack and I ordered it straight away - I wish finding a DVD of the film was that easy. 
I've also finally managed to pick up the first two Oasis albums.  Even though I said they weren't my favourite of the Britpop bands, it's undeniable that they had some really good tunes, most of which are on these two CDs.  I picked up Pulp's 2001 album 'We Love Life' out of love for Jarvis Cocker, Mazzy Star's 'She Hangs Brightly' out of love for their song 'Fade Into You', Bis' 'Vs. The DIY Corps' EP out of love for Scottish indie and The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart's self-titled just because I've heard they're good.  Reviews to come someday when I've had time to listen to them!

A couple of magazines since I've been in Edinburgh: Bust is a feminist-leaning magazine that I found very charming and interesting when I first bought it, so I always have a look to see if there are any interesting features when I see a copy.  This month's cover star plays the lead in 'Crazy Rich Asians' which I'm planning on seeing soon, plus there are pieces on cults, Michelle Wolf and Tumblr culture which are all things I'm interested in.  

I also bought Dazed because M.I.A is on the cover.  I saw her documentary Matangi/Maya/M.I.A yesterday and found it incredible so now I'm on a mission to read everything I can about it. 

One final music item to finish off: I haven't talked about Depeche Mode in this post but I still love and adore them as much as I did at the start of the year.  I've collected most of their vinyl now so I don't spend as much time in the Depeche Mode part of eBay as I used to but I had a look the other day and caught a copy of Black Celebration on cassette about to end with 0 bids.  I put a bid in expecting someone else to be watching it, but nobody was and I won.  As luck would have it, the same seller had also just listed the Suede album which I also ended up winning.  I keep a cassette Walkman in my desk at work to listen to when I have nobody in the office to speak to - or when I need to drown out the people who are talking so I can concentrate - so both of these will be joining the collection in my drawer.