Thank heavens for the British.  Were it not for the comedic relief(Coronation Street, the House of Commons, etc.), we poor Canadians would surely have gone mad from American influence decades ago.  We return the favour by lapping up the sounds of British pop music with a much greater fervour than the egocentric Yanks.  We provide safe harbour for bands on North American tours, even waiting for the U.S. to release their records before they'll come to play here.  Yes, after years of royal visits, we colonists know how to embrace the British.

So when a band like Suede(whose "newest" album Coming Up[nude/Sony] was released here late last Autumn but not available in the U.S.A. until a few months ago) finally lands on Canadian soil, it's greeted with sold out shows and an eager media.  Still, it's hardly the ardourous devotion the band us used to feeling at home.  Thus, the first question posed to Suede's sassy singer Brett Anderson is this: What does coming to North America, where British pop stars aren't pampered like in the U.K. do to one's ego?

"You don't get pampered anywhere," he replies. "We 've gone way past the stage where our egos need massaging, or that we even particularly notice things like that.  Yeah, I think in the early days we kind of like... if you got off the plane and there was no car waiting for you you'd wonder what's going on.  We're just over here to play a couple of gigs for a couple of people, and that's as far as it goes."

Bassist Mat Osman interjects his own answer: "It actually changes on the way over.  When you start off, on the first half of the flight, all the stewardesses are lovely to you.  Then, coming off the plane, when we land on American soil we actually get pushed off the plane without a staircase."

Right, there's one minor problem with the Brits.  No amount of extra "u"s in our dictionary can help decipher when they're telling a good-natured joke or when they're being bratty.  Today, Anderson and Osman aren't quite standoffish, just bored.  Hell, they can afford to be.  While Suede isn't the biggest British band in the world, it's definitely the coolest.  Why?  First off, the members(Anderson, Osman, guitarist Richard Oakes, drummer Simon Gilbert and keyboardist Neil Codling) do not have bad  haircuts and wardrobes bereft of clothing designed in this decade.  They are not publicly dysfunctional.  Anderson's androgyny makes the band twice as sexy.  (At the Toronto concert, I swear that several adolescent boys were coming out as he sang...)

Most importantly, Suede makes music like no other '90s band, on any continent.  To define it as Britpop is to deny yourself its trend-defying, timeless nature.  The songs may be simple, but hardly provisional or hackneyed.(Hello, Space!) Thus, while Anderson and Osman look eager to be entertained with any witty banter, we do not discuss the U.K. vs U.S. music industries(well, except for the first question...), Brett's alleged bisexuality, the departure of guitarist Bernard Butler or Blur, Oasis and Pulp.  We talk about music.

"In whatever we do there's always a grandiose feel.  We find it quite difficult to write songs that haven't got a shred of elegance, that are throw-away or cartoon.  We always like stuff to have a kind of royal sense," explains Anderson.

Coming Up isn't quite as regal as its predecessor, 1994's Dog Man Star, but it's equally sublime.  Short at 10 songs, and 45 minutes, the disc has already produced four splendid singles("Trash", "Beautiful Ones", "Saturday Night", "Lazy") and at least three other tracks("Filmstar", "She", "Starcrazy") are hits waiting to happen.  While Dog Man Star was a solemn listen, Coming Up is joyful, with uplifting strings and metric tones of singalong choruses.

"It's partly a reaction to the last album," admits Anderson.  "Dog Man Star is pretty high drama and sort of a bit fucked up.  On this album, I want to be a bit clean, quite bright and fresh.  Partly, it's a debut album for me and Richard."

Having parted with founding member/co-songwritter Bernard Butler(which we're not going to talk about, remember?), Suede added Richard Oakes fir its Dog Man Star tour in 1995.  His first shot at songwriting with Anderson was on the B-side of DMS's "New Generation" single, a track called "Together".  The addition not only altered the sound of Suede, but its very make-up.

"The whole power system in the band has changes, and deliberately so," explains Anderson(who remains the main songwriter).  "Before, it was me and Bernard who were writing everything and making most of the musical decisions.  Now, everyone has a say.  All that matters is making good records.  Before, there was too much politics."

Coming Up also features writing contributions from Codling, and Osman is now writing as well.  Regardless of how democratic Suede becomes its brilliance lies primarily with Anderson.  The singer's delivery (he makes no secret of his affinity for David Bowie( and clever lyrics elevate Suede's pop gems into the realm of classics.  (Check out "She, sh-shaking up her karma"[from "She"] or "High on diesel and gasoline/Psycho for drum machine/Shaking their bits/To the hits"[from "Beautiful Ones"].)  But wrapped inside is his images of adolescent alienation and longing are universal stories of love tragedy, ones that will certainly outlive lines like Blur's "girls what want boys/who want girls..." When Anderson speaks of "The Wild Ones" and "Beautiful Ones", its not the untouchables he celebrates, but the average lives he witnessed growing up in a small town(Haywards Heath, to be exact).

"I think that these so-called 'small town lives" are actually more dramatic than Hollywood lives," he says.  "It can be a lot more Machiavellian and more involved.  Basically, the human condition us quite fun.  It can be just as exciting out in the sticks as it can be in the public eye."

"The least dramatic life on earth is probably Elton John's" adds Osman.  "He knows what he's going to be doing for the next five years."

Perhaps that's why you won't find Suede pulling pranks for the press, or playing up its obvious star appeal.  Both men claim to have no desire for celebrity lifestyles.

"If I wanted to be celebrity, I'd host a talk show," says Anderson.  "There's no point to celebrity itself, it's a futile goal, really."

They even go so far as to say they're not treated any differently because of their band's profile.

"It's all so much less strange from the inside than it seems from the outside," explains Anderson.  "Human beings are just so adaptable, they really are.  The mind can adapt to anything, any state.  All these stars that get 'fucked-up' about it, that's such a load of bollocks.  They're just fucking stupid.  They just wanted to get fucked up about something wherever they were, you know?  If they were to become gardeners, they'd be fucked-up gardeners.  'Oh my God, I can't get my pivot head right.  I'm going to go into pivot rehab!'"

Luckily for Brett and co., most celebrity screw-ups seem to be on our side of the pond.  Certainly, there is dirty laundry in the British entertainment industry, but the idea of fame differs slightly in an environment where so many people(as Anderson sings in "Beautiful Ones") get into bands.

"I think it's a bit different in England," says Osman, "because everyone is in a band.  It's just in the air.  In America, there's this huge divide between bands and general public.  In London, it's not just set aside for a certain group of people."

"That's what punk did," adds Anderson.  "Punk changed America musically, and a bit culturally, but not socially like it did in Britain.  The hugely important thing that punk did to British society was say to kids that they didn't have to go through five years of music college to be a in a pop group."

So eager is Anderson to remain part of the general public, to refuse any pedestal, that he avoids first person narration in his lyrics.  Suede songs are about "she" or "he", sometimes "us" or "we", but almost never about him.

"I do tend to avoid using "I" quite a lot," he admits.  "I do talk in the third person.  I don't know why.  I suppose a psychologist would took at it and say it's a masking of my own feelings.  And who am I to disagree with psychologists?"

Pity, really.  Here's a most gorgeous, suave character, and he doesn't even want to be a star!  Anderson deliberately spins yarns to interviews(I got: "I don't really have any sexual desires.  I can't remember the last time I did.  It must have been at least 10 years ago."), doesn't like posing for pictures solo, and tries to hide his age(29, allegedly).  Although he does enjoy talking about his cat, Fluffington!

Fortunately, even if Coming Up does little to shed light on the beautiful Mr. Brett Anderson, it does much to enlighten listeners smart enough to seek it out.  In a decade's time, Suede will certainly be spoken of in the same breath as bands like the Cure, for music that both captures the sentiments of its generation, and outlives it.  Which is all that really matters, right? Osman agrees.

"I think records tend to be more beautiful than the people who make them," he says.