Desert Island Drowners
Jan. 14th, 2008 09:02 am[Error: unknown template qotd]

It would have to be Suede's first album. This was the album that changed my entire taste in music when I was 17 years old. Up until that point I was happy to hop around from one genre to the next - one day listening to The Clash, the next happily spinning around to Madonna's Immaculate Collection. But nothing ever meant anything to me, or who I wanted to be, as much as Suede. They were the ones responsible for plunging me head first into indie music, in particular Britpop.
I was still in the closet at this stage, living in Singapore with my family. "Animal Nitrate", the third single from the album, was a big hit - perhaps because it hinted at gay life in a country where homosexuality was illegal, where young Singaporeans had to create codes in order to show each other they were "that way". When "So Young", the fourth single, was released I went to a CD store on Orchard Road and bought the album.
In life, I'm a fairly laid back, slightly melancholic character. It takes extra energy for me to get excited about things, and perhaps that matches perfectly the mood of the album. A few songs stomp their boots, like "The Drowners" and "Metal Mickey", but the whole affair is in general a very dreamy, romantic haze - my ideal state of being. It was thanks to Suede that I discovered Morrissey (they named their band after his single "Suedehead"). I investigated this character called Morrissey, who had inspired such a great album, and discovered that one of my childhood songs "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" was by his band The Smiths. Cupid had added extra poison to his arrows that day; I was a step away from an obsession.

It would have to be Suede's first album. This was the album that changed my entire taste in music when I was 17 years old. Up until that point I was happy to hop around from one genre to the next - one day listening to The Clash, the next happily spinning around to Madonna's Immaculate Collection. But nothing ever meant anything to me, or who I wanted to be, as much as Suede. They were the ones responsible for plunging me head first into indie music, in particular Britpop.
I was still in the closet at this stage, living in Singapore with my family. "Animal Nitrate", the third single from the album, was a big hit - perhaps because it hinted at gay life in a country where homosexuality was illegal, where young Singaporeans had to create codes in order to show each other they were "that way". When "So Young", the fourth single, was released I went to a CD store on Orchard Road and bought the album.
In life, I'm a fairly laid back, slightly melancholic character. It takes extra energy for me to get excited about things, and perhaps that matches perfectly the mood of the album. A few songs stomp their boots, like "The Drowners" and "Metal Mickey", but the whole affair is in general a very dreamy, romantic haze - my ideal state of being. It was thanks to Suede that I discovered Morrissey (they named their band after his single "Suedehead"). I investigated this character called Morrissey, who had inspired such a great album, and discovered that one of my childhood songs "The Boy With The Thorn In His Side" was by his band The Smiths. Cupid had added extra poison to his arrows that day; I was a step away from an obsession.