Suede - Another No One...

Suede's Another No One has been stuck in my head all day. Such a lovely song, everything about it - the chords, the melody, the story. I have a very fond memory of hearing this for the very first time. On the day the Trash singles became available in America, I of course bought them right away but only had time to hear Trash itself before heading out for the evening (this was well before I had a cd player in my car. Ah, that summer of '96, such good mixtapes...). It was only a Monday or a Tuesday, but I was out all night (quite a night too) and getting in around 10 a.m. when post-adventure lack of sleep made all the world seem soft and dreamy, I listened to the b-sides. And immediately fell in love with this song. Those Coming Up b-sides are incredibly good, possibly the best batch of b-sides any band has every produced.




Live at the Forum 5 April 1997. Fanclub show of all b-sides.

Emmanuelle Seigner...

During my French pop binge of recent weeks, I actually followed an iTunes recommendation while I was looking to see if they had any more Isabelle de Funès (sadly, they didn't). But I was led to Emmanuelle Seigner and her Dingue album (Kieron Tyler, who wrote that, gave H Bird a nice review last year in MOJO) as I rather liked the cover. And a lovely pop album it is.

My favourite is Le Jour Parfait, I'm a sucker for 'woo-woo's and such a nice chorus:



Alone À Barcelone sweetly sways about the city:



The title track, Dingue:



Emmanuelle duets with her husband, Roman Polanksi, on Qui Êtes-vous? and with Iggy Pop here on La Dernière Pluie:



She also dueted with Brett Anderson on his Back To You:



Before Dingue, Seigner was in Ultra Orange & Emmanuelle. Don't Kiss Me Goodbye, also featured in The Diving Bell And The Butterfly, is a great slice of Mazzy Star/The Velvet Underground:



Their Sing is also quite a good song.



Seigner also starred in Death In Vegas' racy Hands Around My Throat video.