High school has always been a transition in an number of ways, including musical taste. Adolescent angst will forever remain awful and inescapable, until we escape it of course. So it’s always a relief when you find your musical niche because it helps you define yourself. Listening to songs like Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy The Silence” and David Bowie’s “Heroes” were defining moments as a teenager. Songs like those blurred the boundaries of looking for that self-conscious cool and discovering emotions you could relate to beyond the mainstream pop of boy bands and singers featured on MTV.
Stumbling across a band like Suede was even better because it came from a post-Oasis phase, along with learning about The Stone Roses and subsequently being able to pride myself in being knowledgable enough to be disappointed by the band’s second album. In the past month, Depeche Mode, David Bowie, and Suede have all released new albums within a few weeks of each other. So for it to be 2013 and to be presented with a trifecta of new music is gleefully bringing out my inner teenager.
After a dozen studio album releases, Depeche Mode brings their trademark electro-pop approach to their thirteenth, Delta Machine, as consistently and moodily as ever. With the exception of their lead-off single “Heaven” and one or two other tracks at most, the album is forgettable. At one point, frontman Dave Grahan belts out, ‘We’ve come to the end / Oh did I disappoint you?,’ which is is sure to divide loyal fans in whether they should be regarded as the prolific band that they are or if they have become lost amidst the current synth-pop acts that they themselves influenced.
The sudden announcement of David Bowie releasing a new album popped on the radar after a decade since his last. Per his M.O., he has remained shrouded in mystery, but in a complete 180 from the theatrical, colorful manner for which he is recognized. Without so much as an interview or hint in the media, Bowie’s website made the quiet brief that an album was coming. The secrecy and calculated decision let his music do the speaking is an ingenious move to keep people enthralled after so many decades. The Next Day ranges in every way from being a comeback, to being morbid and thoughtful and–quite frankly–to being plain awesome. It might be oversimplification, but the 66-year-old David Bowie has made a pretty catchy album.
As Bowie’s 90s counterpart, Suede’s androgynous frontman Brett Anderson youthfully warbles his way through a fantastic new album, Bloodsports, in a way that isn’t unlike the same intensity found on the band’s greatest album, Dog Man Star, released almost twenty years ago. After Googling recent images of him, he doesn’t seem to look drastically different either, despite following the rock star conventions of falling into drug addiction. In Suede’s closing track, “Faultlines,” Anderson begins by noting observations of sunrises and car alarms that serve as a reminder of youth. “Celebrate” is a word dropped several times in the chorus and is a theme factored in throughout the song. Frankly, it’s a recurring theme throughout the record, but thankfully not in a cliché way. Bloodsports isn’t a revisitation of their youth or the hype surrounding their artistic peak back in the mid 90s, rather observations about the celebratory time that is now. Where Depeche Mode has relied on recapturing the retro, new wave sound from which so many current artists have drawn direct influence and David Bowie has delivered an album that reworks different facets characteristic glam-rock in a more subdued fashion, Suede has produced a self-possessed record that comes off as unfazed by the decade in which it’s being released, which makes it all the more compelling and fun to listen as a result.
Regardless of the varying subject matter and tone between the three acts, the new releases point out that it’s not hard to imagine why longtime fans have stuck around. Newly acquired fans are hopefully indication of how the pretense of a timeline doesn’t have to factor into the enduring quality of great music.
by Sandy Chung