Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
Entertainment Weekly	C-
Los Angeles Times
Montreal Mirror	7/10
NME	7/10
Pitchfork	7.4/10
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
PopMatters	7/10
SPIN	7/10
The Stranger

Head Music is the fourth album by English alternative rock band Suede, released by Nude Records in May 1999. Produced and mixed by Steve Osborne, Head Music features a more electronic sound, which was a new approach for the band. The recording of Head Music was plagued with difficulties such as singer Brett Anderson's addiction to crack, and keyboardist Neil Codling's struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome. Although the album still went to number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, making it the band's third and final chart-topping album. Overall, the album received generally favourable reviews from critics although it did have some detractors.

After the release of the B-sides compilation Sci-Fi Lullabies, Suede decided to put themselves out of the limelight for over a year. Neil Codling spent most of the year in bed due to his illness and at the same time Anderson's drug abuse was becoming a cause for concern. Anderson began to associate himself with people without the band, who Mat Osman, seemed to dislike. "More than anything there started to be a whole load of people he was associating with who I just couldn't stand. They had nothing to do with the band, nothing to do with anything but drugs. They were drug buddies."

Suede decided to move on from Ed Buller as their producer. After demoing 15 songs with three different producers, wanting to go in a more produced, electronic-sounding direction, the group chose Steve Osborne to produce the album. Osborne had previously worked with bands such as New Order and Happy Mondays. According to Anderson, Head Music was Suede's most experimental album, and Osborne's role played into the group's experimentation, "Steve was responsible for a hell of a lot of this album's sound. We chose him first of all because he did this fucking brilliant job on 'Savoir Faire'... It just sounded really exciting and unusual." Osborne's involvement sparked rumours of Suede going in a dancier direction, which the band strongly denied, although Anderson later said that Head Music was planned as an electronic album.

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Wikipedia