Attention Britpop Fans

Like a lot of men who were still young and full of drugs at the time, I spent at least part of the mid-'90s pretending to be gay. And it was mostly because of this guy.

Brett Anderson was the conspicuously swishy front-man for Suede, the band that somehow precipitated that decade's whole Britpop renaissance without ever making too much of a dent over here. Actually, Suede struggled over there too, taking quite a while to really capitalize on the fame that was handed to it on a silver platter by the U.K. music press.

In 1992, the now-defunct music magazine Melody Maker rather infamously put Suede on its cover -- complete with all sorts of hyperbole and silliness, like calling them the "best new band in Britain," before the band had even released a record. But Suede did actually follow through with a triumphant first single, "The Drowners." and an equally classic eponymous debut album.

At the same time, Anderson and his band mates were kick-starting a '70s revival with godawful polyester shirts and dubious, David Bowie-like proclamations of ambiguous sexuality. "I'm a bisexual man who's never had a homosexual experience," announced Anderson, around this time. It probably seems quaint now, in these orgiastic MySpace times, and maybe it even seemed quaint then, but I bought into it.

With ecstasy putting so much lead in everybody's pencil, and the rave scene hijacked by idiots, Suede offered a home for those of us who found grunge to be profoundly un-sexy. (Eddie Vedder? Are you kidding me?) Back in England, meanwhile, all of Suede's efforts at sowing sexual confusion were being undone by the unmistakably straight rise of Cool Britannia, and the band's masterpiece album, Dog Man Star, disappeared in the noise. Before we knew it, it was all Blur and Oasis, and Tony Blair's sterling smile and champagne supernova socialism (long before somebody toggled Blair's switch from "Hangs Out with Noel Gallagher" to "Evil," of course). The tunes were still pretty good, sure, but there was nothing sexy about Blur and Oasis -- gay, straight or otherwise. You couldn't hump to Oasis.

Oh well. Suede made it to the end of the decade with its artistic chops intact, and a late burst of great hit singles in the U.K. Ironically, as an ex-pat, I find Suede's shamelessly tatty glamour to be far more authentically British than that smug twerp from Blur running around screaming "Parklife!" But then, I was lucky enough to have my prepubescent mind and a few other things bent by this kitchen-sink queen and his faux-mosexual buddy, here.

This was what British television actually offered as its after-school programming for a short spell in the '70s: polymorphous decadence and over-driven amps. Wonderful. I'm certain Brett Anderson was sitting there in his school uniform, taking notes.

Next week, Anderson releases "Back to You," from his self-titled solo album, which I've taken as an occasion to indulge in a little nostalgia for one of my favourite bands. "Back to You" is only available as a short sample on Anderson's MySpace page, so for now, here's the first single from that album, the outstanding "Love is Dead."

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