I remember reading Brett say somehwere that Scott Walker has influenced his solo stuff, if there aren't already enough links between them. That could be interesting though; I'd much rather hear an album of songs like Still Life than Electricity.

Or indeed 'All Around The World' by Oasis. All of them share a similarly-paced C-G-F-Am verse structure.

There were a few years when I listened to very little of Brett's work, mostly because Suede just got progressively worse and worse and he became a caricature of himself, but in the last year I acquired the b-sides collection Sci-Fi Lullabies and, though I haven't yet listened to the second disc, the "new" songs from the early years reminded me how fantastic Suede were in those early years. It does strike me as odd that someone who is so influenced by Bowie can become so one-dimensional - in terms of scope Brett cannot begin to compete with Jarvis - but I still think he's a pretty great songwriter. The Tears was a disaster, an awful idea. Bernard Butler hasn't written a proper melody since 1995, but he seems to think he's Keef. So I'd be very interested to hear what Brett does on a solo record, who plays, arranges and so on. With a good choice of collaborator he could still do something interesting.

I'll be getting Anderson's album, I've always thought he was a fine singer. A New Morning kind of was weak - but there were a couple of good songs on it. I really liked The Tears' album, I think there were some superb songs on it. They did always fall down when trying to do another Trash or Beautiful Ones though, and the charicature comment seems spot on.

And yeah, some of Suede's b sides - particularly from the earlier days - were superb. I think The Big Time is atonishing.