’93-’13: Animal Nitrate, Suede

A series highlighting great (but critically-ignored) songs from the past twenty years.

In Australia, Placebo saw more success with this particular brand of fey depravity than Suede ever did; Animal Nitrate is certainly not their finest track – we’ll let NME staffers argue that out elsewhere – but as a glam-infused rock single, it deserved way more attention than it received when it arrived in February ’93: eighteen months too early to be swept along in the Britpop current, and too caked in eyeliner to break through the wall of grunge that had surrounded radio at that point. The always forward-thinking Triple J supported the song, with the track reaching #69 on that year’s Hottest 100, but it quickly slipped from focus as the brothers Gallagher soon co-opted all that was British and guitar-based.

The lyrics also caused concern, with the amyl nitrite references and gut-churning blur between inhalant-fuelled sex and earlier sexual abuse. The fact it is affixed to a rush of glam guitars only heightens the uneasy subject matter.

Brett Anderson’s sneering whine and Bernard Butler’s guitar work (which recalls Marc Bolan, Mick Ronson and Johnny Marr) are both second-to-none, and the peeling guitar riff sounds even better when you find out they nicked it from the theme song to 1970s UK police drama Dixon of Dock Green.