Easily Suede

Britain used to export a jillion of these guys: thin, pale, sexually ambiguous, devoted to the decadent possibilities of rock 'n' roll. Now that Peter Murphy and David Bowie have long been subsumed into a sea of moth-eaten flannel, there may be only Suede's Brett Anderson, a brittle man fond of telling reporters he is a bisexual who has never had a homosexual experience. English to the core. In American pop circles, Suede is known mostly as the group anointed best new band by the British music press before they had issued so much as a single, the essential product of the U.K. hype machine. But in an authenticity-obsessed rock world, where the last thing a rock star is supposed to. want to be is a rock star, Suede at least seems to enjoy their profession. "You're playing on a stage and you get a kick out of it," says Anderson. "Denying that is like saying you don't enjoy sex."

Faced with a lawsuit last year by a Washington, D.C., folksinger who also goes by the name of Suede, the band was renamed London Suede (at least in America), which sounds more like a 1974 denim boutique than a pop band, but is squarely in the tradition of other litigation-impaired groups such as Chaos UK and the English Beat. Their second full album is due out next month, and Anderson promises it will be more accessible than the last. "It's like Billy Joel, then we knock it around a bit and it somehow turns into Suede." Make that London Suede.

JONATHAN GOLD