It's not a feat that just any band could perform. Just over two years ago, after the release of their second album Dog Man Star, Suede acrimoniously parted company with their guitarist and chief tunesmith, Bernard Butler.
Butler was revered as an alternative axe hero of the same lineage as the Smiths' Johnny Marr and the Stone Roses' John Squire, and the critics were quick to pounce, predicting that without his talent, the Bowie-esque, low-rent glam band who had inspired adulation from pre-pubescents and critical respect from peers and press would implode.
Commentary turned to mockery when, through the music press classifieds, Suede recruited an unknown teenager called Richard Oakes (who had barely finished his A-levels) more or less based on his ability to mimick Butler's guitar lines. The New Musical Express condescendingly began referring to Oakes as 'little Dick', and questioned whether they shouldn't just all quietly call it a day.
But those who witnessed the band's concert at Queen Elizabeth Stadium last March left having seen anything but a spent force. Suede gave a gutsy, powerhouse performance, and Oakes showed himself to be, technically at least, a worthy successor to Butler. However, the question still remained whether the band could produce another hit album without their former guitar player.
Earlier this year, the band answered that with the release of Coming Up, which climbed to the top of the British album chart, while the first single, Trash, made number three. So, did singer Brett Anderson feel vindicated in the wake of a new wave of success? 'Relieved as much as anything . . . I've known for a year or a year and a half that we had a great album in us, and that we could do all the things we've always done, and it's just frustrating not to be able to get it out,' said the singer over the phone from his home in London.
'We were touring and we were just playing old songs, and you feel like a bit of a cheat because you're saying to people, look, just wait, we're going to come back with something great, but people are so used to fake bravado from bands that it doesn't really mean anything. It's really satisfying to actually just have a record out and be judged on that again.' Anderson said the new album had also done well outside Britain.
'We're actually bigger outside England now than we are in. The album was number one in Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Trash was top 10 in about 15 countries. It went gold in Hong Kong, which was really strange because we haven't even spoken to anyone there since we did that gig.' Suede's concert last year was perhaps remarkable for a British band because it seemed the vast majority of those who attended were young Chinese.
