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Brett Anderson

English singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 2, 2026
Entity authorityQ344013 ↗
Source-derived summary

Brett Lewis Anderson (born 29 September 1967) is an English singer best known as the lead singer-songwriter and primary lyricist of the rock band Suede. After Suede disbanded in 2003, he fronted the Tears with former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler in 2004–2006, and released four solo albums on which he also played guitar and keyboards. Suede re-formed in 2010; they continue to record and tour. He is noted for his distinctive wide-ranging voice, poetic lyrics, charismatic stage presence and in Suede's early years, an androgynous appearance.

Early years

Anderson was born and grew up in Lindfield, Sussex, a village two miles (3 km) north-east of Haywards Heath. His mother was an artist and a dressmaker; his father was a taxi driver whom Anderson described as an "obsessive classical-music fan". He attended Lindfield Junior School, Oathall Comprehensive School, and Haywards Heath Sixth-Form College. In 1986 he gained A-levels in Maths, Physics and Chemistry.

In his teens Anderson played guitar for garage bands such as the Pigs and Geoff, the latter featuring future Suede bassist Mat Osman. In the late 1980s, while a student at the Bartlett School of Architecture, University College London, Anderson and Osman formed Suede with Anderson's girlfriend, Justine Frischmann, and soon recruited guitarist Bernard Butler through an advertisement in NME. After they had received temporary help from former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce, in 1991 Simon Gilbert joined as their permanent drummer.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Brett Anderson” is english singer. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Brett, Anderson and English, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1967, 2003, 2004, 2006—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1967-09-29. For this dossier, Brett, Anderson and English is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “english singer” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q344013. VIAF identifies the subject as 88580738. The Library of Congress control number is nb97040793. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1967, 2003, 2004 and 2006.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Brett Anderson”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Brett Anderson primary sources, Brett Anderson archive and Brett research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Brett Anderson”?
  2. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
  3. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Brett Anderson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.