Beautiful Ones
Suede
There's a recklessness to the sonic architecture here that feels almost architectural in its excess — guitars stacked and distorted into something that glams and scrapes simultaneously, the rhythm section pushing with an urgency that borders on panic. Brett Anderson's voice soars and cracks through it, androgynous and yearning, pitched somewhere between ecstasy and desperation. The production is lush in a consciously artificial way, theatrical rather than naturalistic, which is exactly the point: this is music about aspiration and desire and the gorgeous tragedy of wanting. Lyrically it's a celebration of a particular kind of outsider youth — beautiful, reckless, alive in ways that mainstream existence doesn't accommodate — but there's a tenderness in how it's observed, not mockery but genuine love for people living at the edges of things. Suede were doing something distinct from their Britpop contemporaries here: reaching back toward glam rock and Bowie rather than the Beatles, finding inspiration in glamour rather than laddishness. This song belongs to the moment you're getting ready to go out and you need to feel the night opening up in front of you, or to any memory of being young and knowing your crowd, your tribe, the specific people who understood what you were.
fast
1990s
lush, dense, glittering
British, London indie and glam scene
Rock, Glam Rock. Britpop. euphoric, yearning. Opens in reckless exhilaration and builds toward a tender, triumphant celebration of outsider youth.. energy 8. fast. danceability 6. valence 7. vocals: androgynous male, soaring falsetto, theatrical, yearning. production: stacked distorted guitars, lush orchestration, theatrical glam-influenced mixing. texture: lush, dense, glittering. acousticness 2. era: 1990s. British, London indie and glam scene. Getting ready for a night out when you need to feel the evening opening up in front of you.