Suede

Dismissed by industry A&R men obsessed with the Seattle grunge movement, Suede spent years slogging their way around London's music scene before influential music paper Melody Maker put them on the cover and declared them "Britain's Best New Band" despite not having released a record. Fuelled with androgynous sexuality and the doomed romanticism of The Smiths, the band sowed the seeds of Brit pop when debut album Suede (1993) shot to Number 1 in the UK, propelled by the classic early singles Metal Mickey, Animal Nitrate and Stay Together. The album won the Mercury Music Prize, but tensions between songwriting duo Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler saw the guitarist Butler depart shortly before the completion of Dog Man Star (1994) - cited by many as the band's finest moment. The new line-up came back strongly with the Number 3 single Trash and the hugely successful Number 1 album Coming Up (1996); and headline slots at Roskilde and V99 confirmed them as one of the UK's leading acts. Later albums Head Music (1999) and A New Morning (2002) divided fans and critics and the band split in 2004 but their influence lives on with the likes of Arcade Fire, Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand drawing inspiration.