My Music Guilty Pleasures: #29

Would you believe it? Another late post! I'll catch up soon enough, I'm sure... If 'sure' were to mean 'not at all convinced', that is. Number 29 is another track from a band that I absolutely love, but it has its reasons for being a guilty pleasure. It's one of those ones that I don't particularly view as a guilty pleasure - if at all - but would certainly be considered by many others to be one. See what I meant by defining a 'guilty pleasure' as being difficult? We haven't even scraped the surface of criteria... Everything's just too bloody subjective. This is why you should just nod and agree with everything I say.

Suede - She's In Fashion

Right then. First thing's first: I love Suede. I firmly believe that Brett Anderson is a criminally underrated songwriter and stylised vocalist, and can only hope that his stock rises in years to come. As of now he's still very much a cult hero. She's In Fashion comes from the back end (oooooh, naughty...) of Suede's career, in which a preference for pop sensibility was definitely present. For me it's one of many songs that I find very difficult indeed to resist singing along to (you could even call it a SINGle, but that would be shit), but...well...what exactly makes it a guilty pleasure to me? (SPOILER: I don't really know.) In truth, this one's rather tricky to approach, because I genuinely don't feel as though it's a guilty pleasure when I listen to it. Not much, anyway. Is it because the song hasn't aged terribly well? Not at all - if anything I think it's aged very well. Granted, it's only been 13 years since its release but you'd be shocked when you realise just how many tracks from that sort of time-frame are starting to sound incredibly dated through having stagnated. Yes, that rhyme was awkward. There's a tinge of the 'Bowie effect' (not a real notion - I just coined it) to it, in the way that despite all the changes that our culture has been through over the years, an aura of distinctly effortless coolness remains. To a lesser extent, of course, this song captures that vibe. I'm starting to wonder if maybe the simple case is that this song is just too damn fashionable for me, and so therefore the relationship between me and it just doesn't work... Perhaps I am what makes it a guilty pleasure. Sorry, Suede - I'm ruining your image. Had it been written about me for whatever reason, we'd see a slightly different and altogether more boring title of 'He's Not In Fashion'. Woo.

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