The emergence of Tesla forced every premium automaker into a reevaluation of not just their products, but also their raison d’être. What does a brand like Lincoln mean in the 21st century? The company’s President is retiring after 38 years with Ford, and in a valedictory interview, made one extremely astute observation about the state of a luxury consumer. She also said something about “credible wellness.” I’m not sure I 100% understand that.
It’s been a while since The Morning Dump has featured a face-off between GM and Ford. My youth was dominated by the concept of Chevy v. Ford, Camaro v. Mustang, F-150 v. Silverado. With age and experience, I’m a little less concerned with picking one team over another. Both are capable of making great cars, and I’d rather enjoy all of them than pick sides.
Let’s pick sides for a minute, though, because Ford’s luxury brand is making a bigger statement about customer service being central to its business, while GM is trying to insist that anything you do on a public road in one of their cars is their business in response to a lawsuit over customer data. I don’t love that. While we’re on the topic of torts, Tesla settled another lawsuit related to a crash, which is unusual.
Toyota and Daimler may be competitive in certain markets, but the automakers seem to think they’ll have a better chance against China and U.S tariffs if they team up.
Let’s dump.
Lincoln President: Premium Customers ‘Don’t Want Subscriptions’
Lincoln has been a sleeper pick for one of the most improved brands over the last decade. Lincoln buyers are super sticky, the new cars are packed full of features, and sales haven’t been this good since True Blood was still pumping out new episodes on HBO.
A lot of credit for that success can go to longtime Ford exec Dianne Craig, who, after 38 years with the company, is peacing out at the end of April. Not content to merely go out on top, Craig gave a long interview to Automotive News, and there are two insights from Craig that I think we should talk about. Let’s start with something I 100% agree with, which is that to attract more premium buyers, you need a premium dealer experience:
“It’s all part of the package to make people feel special,” Craig said. “That’s what premium customers want. It’s an emotional purchase; it isn’t rational.”
One strategy the brand won’t use, Craig said, is charging new buyers subscription fees to use built-in features. Although Ford is counting on recurring revenue from such services to pad profit margins, Craig said that approach isn’t right for Lincoln.
“Whether it be BlueCruise, connectivity, security — they will be part of the warranty period,” she said. “Our focus is really in having that in the base vehicle price, at least for the warranty duration. Everything we’ve learned about premium customers is they don’t want subscriptions.”
If I buy a first-class ticket on a plane, I’m going to be upset if I’m then upcharged $5 for an extra hot face towel. That’s not how luxury works. I don’t even love paying extra for stuff in the basest of base-model Bronco Sports, and I’m not sure most buyers want that, either. It’s particularly insane for luxury cars to try to tack on expensive options you pay for monthly, although Tesla does sometimes get away with it for self-driving features (we’ll see how long that lasts). BMW tried this trick with its $18-per-month heated seats, and people got upset with them, so the Bavarian brand had to reverse its decision.
Fair play to Lincoln, here, for not doing that, or at least not doing that during the warranty period. After a few years, it might make sense to have certain features that require updates to be supported by a fee. Maybe. [Ed Note: Not a fan of monthly fees on a used car. -DT]
Here’s the other bit I’m a little less sold on, which is the move away from the guiding concept of “Quiet Flight” to another phrase:
While the “quiet flight” theme endures, Lincoln’s outgoing president, Dianne Craig, said the philosophy moving forward will hinge on another two-word phrase: credible wellness.
“We’ve got a really clear, compelling vision of where we want to take the brand,” Craig told Automotive News at a media event here. “We want to become the automotive brand that’s known for wellness.”
Huh.
“The reality is, especially our customers — the premium customers — they’ve arrived, they can afford really nice vehicles,” Craig said. “But what you can’t put a price tag on is your health and where you place your time and your precious moments.”
The new Lincoln Navigator does look super nice and has features like a “Rejuvinate mode” that’ll mix scents, massaging seats, music, and “calming visuals” to chill out passengers while parked outside a dance practice that never ends, or waiting for your mother-in-law at the airport.
She did say “credible” wellness, which means the company has to deliver the goods. I, for one, am willing to borrow the Navigator for a long trip to see if this is credible.
[Ed Note: The wellness thing I get. I see people dropping thousands on bone broth and spirulina smoothies at my local Erewohn grocery store; there’s money there. But “credible” seems unconfident to me. -DT].
GM Says Driving On A Public Road ‘Cannot Form The Basis For Any Privacy-Based Claim’
General Motors and other automakers got in trouble last year when it was revealed that they were selling your driving data to companies like LexisNexis and Verisk, who then sold that data to insurance companies. The companies all backed off, but not before a bunch of lawsuits were filed.
GM, OnStar, LexisNexis, and Verisk are all trying to get a federal court to dismiss the claims, and the arguments seem to be centered on two main arguments:
- People consented to this.
- What you do in public on public roads can’t be considered private.
Ignoring the first one for now, this second one might be a compelling legal argument, but it feels wrong. Here’s what GM said in its brief:
Ignoring the benefits of OnStar services in general and Smart Driver in particular, Plaintiffs claim GM used OnStar and Smart Driver to convert GM vehicles into “corporate surveillance machines” that invaded customer privacy. These allegations fail to state viable claims because, among other reasons, GM’s collection of driving data was disclosed and consented to, and because driving a vehicle—which necessarily involves conduct that takes place on public roads—cannot form the basis for any privacy-based claim.
Again, even if this is true from a legal perspective, as a consumer, I hate it.
Tesla Settles Another Wrongful Death Lawsuit
Tesla was on a bit of a roll for a while, having won a few wrongful death lawsuits related to the company’s assisted driving features. Lately, though, Tesla has been settling. First, there was the lawsuit from the Apple engineer whose Model X swerved off a highway, which Tesla settled on the eve of the trial.
This week, Tesla settled another crash.
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla has agreed to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the estate of a man who was killed in 2021 after his Tesla crashed and caught fire near Dayton, Ohio.
Tesla and lawyers for the estate disclosed the settlement in a filing on Monday in federal court in San Francisco but did not reveal its terms.
Tesla denied any wrongdoing. Is this part of a pattern? All of a sudden, Tesla and its CEO seem a lot less sympathetic to a larger group of potential jurors, though there’s been no indication that this is the reason behind the move.
Toyota’s Hino And Daimler/Mitsubishi’s Fuso Look To Merge
The world is growing increasingly uncertain with tariffs, Chinese competition, and things of that nature.
Toyota’s Hino Trucks unit and the Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Corporation, which is actually owned by Daimler, look like they’re going to merge in order to better face this uncertainty. At least that’s the plan, according to a report in Nikkei Asia:
The four companies are expected to finalize the merger agreement as early as May. An antitrust review by the Japan Fair Trade Commission is close to completion.
After the transaction, a newly created holding company would own all of both Hino Motors and Mitsubishi Fuso.
Toyota now owns 50.1% of Hino, and Daimler Truck owns 89.3% of Mitsubishi Fuso. While Toyota and Daimler Truck are expected to have equal stakes in the new holding company, Toyota’s share of the voting rights would be under 20%.
The deal was supposed to go forward last year, but the Hino emissions cheating scandal slowed things down for a while.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I grew up in the time of grunge, even if grunge never quite felt right to me. I didn’t have quite the self-loathing necessary. Perhaps that’s why the clever Britpop of Blur and Pulp was more appealing as I grew up and slowly became aware of those bands thanks to shows like “120 Minutes” on MTV. One band I totally missed was Suede, even though the group was a key part of the success of the genre. Enjoy “Animal Nitrate” from the Brit Awards.
The Big Question
Would you pay a subscription for any car service? What would it be for?
Top Photo: Lincoln
I subscribe to calling out B.S. and it only costs friendships and advancement.
Related to the collection of drivers’ information, I’d do a subscription of a grade system of nearby cars displayed on the dash. That way I could drive cautiously around the Charger with an F grade while ignoring my bias feelings of the Altima with a B grade.
That will be free when we adopt China’s social credit system.
When?
I’ll pay subscription for services that make sense. I will pay for server-reliant things such as a service that allows me to see the location of my vehicle and start it via app.
I would possibly pay for satellite radio if I didn’t prefer to just use my phone.
I won’t judge someone for paying to make their car a hotspot for their kids’ iPads and such, though I don’t need that. If cars are to ever truly drive themselves, it would make sense to have a subscription. Updates and refinement would be helpful.
I won’t pay a subscription for anything that should not require server maintenance or the like. Heated seats? No, just a button. Dash cam? I don’t want that on the cloud–I will pay extra for a camera that uses an SD card just to avoid that.
Subscriptions around my car? I pay a monthly car wash subscription. I have previously prepaid maintenance, but it has to actually reflect a savings for me to bite, which those deals often don’t.
I canceled an order for the Equinox EV partly because the Android Automotive they added blocked Android Auto and would require a data subscription after the initial trial ran out. I don’t want to be forced to pay for car data when I already have a cell phone that can do it all.
Pretty well how I feel. Static features that don’t require data or continuous updates? Take the subscription and shove it.
I feel like BMW toed the line with navigation in that regard. In my brother-in-law’s car he had to pay a subscription to use navigation at all; I feel that was egregious. However, a subscription to have up-to-date maps and/or traffic data would be ok in my mind.
I find myself growing tired of these efforts to try and bleed as much cash as possible out of a service and pretend it’s for your betterment.
With an electric car, I might someday be convinced to buy a subscription to an outfit with really-good and/or discounted charging stations.
Rippstik and MrLM002 beat me to the car-wash subscription possibility. Having a whole fleet of cars and Iowa weather to deal with, I could make good use of one of those.
I’m willing to pay a subscription for connected services, as cell data costs money.
But being able to start my vehicle from my phone while I’m in the change room at the end of a shift, and walking out to a vehicle with defrosted windows and heat when it’s -30, is about the best possible feature in my mind.
I pay a subscription for SiriusXM. Yes, the hardware was built in, but the actual service isn’t from the car manufacturer.
As for a subscription to the car manufacturer…..nothing really comes to mind. Heated seats, while nice, probably wouldn’t be worth it for the $$$ they’d want. A connected service like Nav is available on my phone. If the manufacturer does something stupid like blocking my phone navi in favor of a built in, then I’d move on to a different manufacturer where I can use the car the way I want.
Maybe car washing, though if the option was available I’d just have my glass cleaned very well, I could care less if the car looks dirty, I just want to see well out of the car, and sadly it doesn’t rain enough nor with enough rain to properly wash the car 99% of the time.
However such a subscription wouldn’t be through the car. Preferably I don’t want ANY “connected” features.
re: subscriptions. If there are ongoing expenses related to a service – then an ongoing fee may apply reasonably. If its a feature that doesn’t require more than the normal amount of upkeep (software updates for security, for example) then no one should even be allow to charge a recurring fee.
I’d consider a carwash subscription someday.
Damn, beat me to it by less than a minute.
I had one for 15 years, they kept increasing the price for new customers until the point where my monthly fee was cheaper than one equivalent wash.
The only subscription that I would ever pay will be maintenance related items (I am not sure if they even exist). Imagine paying like $40 a month for 3 oil changes a year + once a year brake pads + twice a year wipers blades, etc. Instead of paying a big sum at once, dealerships could keep customers for longer. They could even put that in the lease agreement and cancel anytime. They can make it more attractive assuring a loaner every time your car is in for service or sending a mobile unit to your location.
A local dealer chain used to do something like this, you would pay $100 and it would cover you for 3 oil change/tire rotations. But it had to be paid upfront. Still not bad considering I usually end up paying close to the $100 for a single oil change now.
I would never do that. I’m pretty gentle on consumables so it would definitely cost me more to pay the subscription than I’d get back in services. Better to toss the money in a shoe box and raid it when I need something done.
I hate doing oil changes and brake work myself. Even worse is dragging myself out to a mechanic to get it done. I’d consider a subscription for someone to come out and do it in my driveway a few times a year.
My dealership will actually come pick up my car for those & drop off when done. It’s fantastic
That’s the luxury experience Lincoln is talking about above! I would love something like that, I hate having to go and wait over an hour for them to change the oil.
“and because driving a vehicle—which necessarily involves conduct that takes place on public roads—cannot form the basis for any privacy-based claim.”
This is a weak-ass legal claim. Thats like saying that you can see the street from your house and people can see in so there is no expectation of privacy in your house. While a lesser standard is applied to cars, they still enjoy a reasonable expectation of privacy. I.e. you need a legal cause to search a vehicle and you can’t enter a vehicle without permission. i.e. if it takes place IN the car, you can’t say its a public place, even if the car lives in mostly public places.
Try harder GM.
They aren’t looking in your car – simply tracking where your car is physically located.
That’s not an accurate description of what they were doing. They are recording how hard you brake and how often. How hard you accelerate etc. And they were selling that data, which ended up in the hands of insurance companies.
They may not “look” inside your car but they are already in the car recording everything going on.
Like whether there were passengers in the car, whether the seat belts were clicked, and whether it was done before the car shifted out of parking? Stuff down to that level of detail?
I’m pretty sure how much you “bend” the speed limit was in the mix, but I don’t know if it went as far as things like how loud you played the radio.
Regardless, it’s none of GM’s business, and I find it offensive that they would collect any info like that and make money off of me by selling that info to whatever self-interested party is willing to fork over the dough.
I do think it was all restricted to vehicle data. I’m not sure if they reported what you were listening to and at what volume but I believe they do have access to that data.
They do not state if you were speeding but they do note the speed of travel and location so it’s not hard for anyone receiving the data to pull location speed limits to figure it out.
They may not know if there was a passenger (there are no cameras inside the vehicles like in a Tesla that I’m aware of) but they do note if the passenger sensor enabled the airbag.
I agree it’s none of their business. It would be amazing if we actually had a consumer’s “bill of rights” or something that put a definitive set of rules on data sharing/selling. Even better would be something like the EU has for data protection but I won’t hold my breath for either.
The data being collected from us would astound most people. If you look at what Google has on you and how they are connecting the data from multiple sources, I think it would change people’s minds about just how slippery this slope is.
Which if applied to the strictest standard for expectation of privacy constitutes an illegal search. Its been upheld in court that police can’t attach a gps tracker to your vehicle without violating the 4th amendment except in cases that are already carved out as exceptions (warrant, probably cause, consent, etc) and while the 4th amendment doesn’t cover civil law, its used as the standard legally.
If they didn’t include an opt-out data collection policy as part of the terms and conditions of buying the car they would have no legal right to that data. The question of consent is worth considering as a legal argument here, but expectation of privacy is a trash argument and Im shocked they are even trying it.
It would be great if the USA had privacy laws like the EU – but we don’t.
It is interesting that you bring up police attaching GPS trackers to cars as today many department have found it is easier to simply buy that location data from commercial data brokers because it doesn’t require a warrant.
Strong argument that data brokers shouldn’t have it in the first place
We could always change the law…..
what are laws?
What about a reasonable expectation that I should be able to control the data being collected in a device/vehicle I own?
Yes, everyone opted in. How useful would the car or its features be if all these people had opted out?
I agree with your premise, but the point I’m trying to make here is that from a perspective of law, the expectation of privacy is a bogus claim on its face. A passenger of a vehicle’s personal property is already covered by an expectation of privacy (i.e. a person’s wallet, purse or phone aren’t subject to searches without consent, warrant, probable cause or exigent circumstances) so why should my car’s data be? if its in the car and its mine, is it not MY personal property?
I think we’re basically making the same point with that and I tend to agree.
I was kist wondering, from a legal POV, if you could make the argument that the users had no reasonable way to opt out and the data collection was done without permission, that the privacy issue wouldn’t really matter one way or the other.
I do agree with your point on expectation of privacy in the car though.
Its been seen that some courts are unfavorable to automatic opt in provisions in cases like this, and some see it as traditional consent. Its South Park Terms and Conditions all over again.
Rivermind Plus anyone?
Plus is now Standard.
The only thing I could see myself paying a subscription fee for is access to over the air diagnosis of issues with the car.
Not simple stuff like OBD2 readers, but legitimate diagnostics like a dealer has.
I’d be open to having this as a one-time use fee, but I’d prefer monthly I think because it obviously wouldn’t be necessary during the warranty period.
This. Access to dealer diagnostics is a perfect use. But, I’d rather it be more like $39.99 per use or day. Something reasonable, but not too cheap so it’s not abused?
That would be even better honestly.
I just realized my original post wasn’t clear. The one-time-use fee I meant was like $1000 or whatever for unlimited access, but I like your idea better I think.
This is available from some OEM’s, $40 for two days access. It’s not so helpful if you don’t have a bi-directional scanner/ multi-channel scope.
Yeah ideal would be the OEM’s server speaking OTA to the vehicle and displaying the issues in plain language on the dash screen without me needing to purchase any equipment.
With all of these connected systems why do we still rely on the check engine light and other lights on the dash?!?!?!
There should be no reason to use an OBD scanner to retrieve codes in this day and age. I can only guess the dealers press the manufacturers to keep that data locked away to make us go to the service department for help.
There are a lot of cheap but functional knockoffs of the OEM scanner hardware on Amazon. I have one for my Prius and it’s fantastic.
Which reminds me I still need to code it for the new TPMS sensors I had installed with my new tires…
I would never pay for a subscription for part of the car I already paid for to work. I already didn’t pay for OnStar, SiriusXM, and other services that I didn’t need.
If you’re going to try to make me pay a monthly fee to use heated seats that are in my car, I’m either going to wire them to a switch myself or just buy a different car altogether. If it gets to the point that every manufacturer is doing this, I’ll just keep driving old shit instead of getting something new when I get done paying off all my debts.
Three years ago, I would have said absolutely not. Today? I’m strongly considering keeping the subscription for BlueCruise on my Ford. The hands-free highway cruise is SOOOO nice for boring commuting traffic, and really takes the edge off. I also get that there’s ongoing costs for Ford to continue supporting it (regularly mapping and updating the supported road network, improving the tuning, etc), so I’m ok with a subscription there.
Without the subscription, you can still use all the other cruising functions like radar cruise control and lane following, which are processed internally to the car with onboard hardware, so no ongoing costs for Ford. I think that’s a fair compromise.
Damnit I really wanted to make my “no subscriptions, ever” stand but what you’re describing (even if it may be a decade before I’m a buyer of a car with tech like this) does make the case for a product that by nature requires constant updating and refinement. And of course there’s got to be some way to pay for the people who perform that work…
I’m coming around to this mode of thought as well… and If I don’t pay, I still have the underlying feature. The egregiousness is paying to unlock built in features (heated seat, remote start) that require no long term mfg support.
It’s why I never updated the maps on my ’05 Acura, I just use my iPhone.
Yep, I’m 100% with you there, and as far as I can tell so far in my Ford ownership, so are they.
I’m not paying subscription fees for anything. I don’t car about heated seats/steering wheel. I don’t use Sat radio. I use my phone for navigation. If a car I like require sub fees, I’ll just find another car.
Yes, for The Autopian.
It would be for The Autopian. Are these trick questions? They seem obvious.
Physical functions like heated seats, extra power, radar cruise, etc should never be a subscription, period.
HOWEVER… stuff like BlueCruise hands-free highway cruise control requires steady map updates as highways and roads DO change, and unlike a navigation system where an outdated map is relatively minor annoyance you can probably live with (thinking back to the DVD-based navigation system where yearly maps were exorbitantly expensive), an outdated BlueCruise map is a serious safety issue.
That said, I think Ford has struck a good compromise here where you can still use all the radar cruise and lane following systems without a subscription using the hardware onboard the car. It’s just the hands-free mode that requires a subscription, and I think that’s reasonable enough given the ongoing cost of the servers, map updates, and general software maintenance needed to make that work. Ford has also steadily improved the system a LOT with included over the air updates since I got the car three years ago, so they’re also actively developing it, and that’s not free.
You raise valid points.
I can see hands free driving requiring a subscription, to cover system/software updates and more importantly the liability coverage for the manufacturer. (If the car is driving itself and there’s an accident, I’m just a passenger regardless of which seat I’m sitting in.)
Third party subscriptions (satellite radio, car washes, and that ilk) are fine, but if it relates to a physical feature built into the car, then no.
For example, remote start from a key fob shouldn’t be a subscription, but I can understand it if you’re going through a cell phone app (as in you’re subscribing to the app, and not the remote start function in particular). This is the one thing that pisses me off about my RAV4 – the car is perfectly capable of doing remote start, but they paywalled it behind an app that I refuse to pay for. It’s also the reason its replacement likely won’t be a Toyota, unless they add that functionality back into the key fob as a non-subscription feature.
More than anything, I think connected cars are fundamentally flawed, as eventually the cellular network improvements and upgrades are going to render some functionality inoperable somewhere down the road, as we’ve already seen with the death of 3G networks.
As for the crap GM is pulling, simple. They’re permanently off my shopping list. I’ll never buy another GM product.
All good arguments, and I agree if the function is only using hardware already built into the car, it should never be a subscription, ever.
I could kind of understand if economies of scale dictated that every car shipped came equipped with heated seats, but that a base, discounted trim had them disabled. In that case, paying a flat one-time fee (say to a dealer) to enable that function is fair enough as you didn’t pay for that function in the first place. That fee should be attached to the VIN of the vehicle, so it’s preserved across all subsequent owners. I don’t love that cost model, but I understand economies of scale when you’re making hundreds of thousands of cars, stuff like this comes up, as unintuitive as it sounds.
I also fully agree on the network obsolescence problem. My car has 5G, which should be around for quite some time, but nothing lasts forever. Thankfully, many of the functions in car work with wifi (like the car connects to my home wifi while parked at home and will do updates and such, in addition to using the 5G connection) as well as Bluetooth (for the “phone as a key” function). With the wifi and bluetooth hardware onboard the vehicle, it’s well positioned to outlast the cellular connectivity, but again, nothing lasts forever.
If you build it into every car, it would actually cost more to disable it in some trims. Notice that power windows are now standard in pretty much everything – along with a host of other features that we used to put in car ads in newspapers. PS, PB, PDL, PW, AC, CC, AM/FM/Cass, etc.
My truck had (has? Haven’t checked in a while) app remote start, but knowing at some point that would either become a paid feature or deprecate, I installed an OEM key fob remote start kit, which included a security system as a bonus. I also added a booster antenna which gives the fob something like a quarter mile of useable range.
Regarding GM, yeah, I don’t think vehicle-as-a-service is going to work out well from them in the long run.
As a dedicated used car buyer, I’m not paying subscription fees. I don’t use Sirius or On-Star. I use my iPhone for maps and nav. At the same time, if the fundamental underlying CAR is solid and meets my needs I can forgive a few missing features. That said, a subscription for heated seats, etc already built into the CAR is just asinine.
I can’t subscribe to Dianne Craig’s assertion about “credible wellness.” Now, credible swellness, that I could buy.
No, there is nothing for which I am willing to pay a subscription fee to a car company. That’s just a good reason never to do business with one.
“You got nothing to hit but the heights! You’ll be swell. You’ll be great. I can tell— Just you wait! “
I’ll pay for anything that reasonably needs to exist outside of the car to work:
XM radio – Not for me, but the wife does
Live traffic – Sure, if you prefer that over your phone
Over the Air upgrades – Maybe, but updates and bug patches should be gratis since that is me not clogging your recall service bay.
Much more than that, I’m questioning. You want to charge me to tell me what an error code is, what is this, a McDonald’s ice cream machine?
What about driving that takes place on private property? Is GM going to shut off their data collection in such situations? How would they know to do that unless they poll GPS periodically and take pains not to store the information? How would they know to restart data collection unless they had two data points indicating the departure or removal of the vehicle from the private property? Where do easements fall? What about driving into an airport or onto federal land, which is not public property as such?
Edit: and that’s without getting into the whole Fourth Amendment, which, while that prevents unreasonable search and seizure by the government, still forms the basis for what constitutes a private place or other such space or object as might be construed or inferred as to confer privacy on the inhabitants.
This is exactly this issue with GMs argument. GMs argument is that because some driving takes place on public property, there can be no expectation of privacy. The nature of that argument is that because some of an event MAY take place on public property, or is LIKELY to take place on public property, they have a right to access ALL data generated? Ummmmm, no.
They have a much stronger argument regarding consent, but even that is likely a clickthrough agreement. Those haven’t been upheld with the strictness that regular contracts get.
If I take a trailer camping in a national forest, do they have the right to watch me getting laid in it? And if so, does that right extend to when the trailer is on my home property? We don’t currently fully believe in zero privacy even in public yet. We are working on it, but we aren’t there yet.
In the USA there are no federal rights to the air above your property. People can fly airplanes and drones overhead and see what you are doing. It would be interesting to see if this extends to satellite
GM’s strongest defense is that people opted in – because they did.
(State laws vary)
I would only pay for a premium trail mapping subscription that woulds be a good or better than Gaia or OnX. My wife will pay for remote start from her phone because her car is too far from her work on sub zero days.
I love me some Suede. I wanted the RSD release, but it was gone before I could get in to the shop. Animal Nitrate and Metal Mickey are fantastic songs. Relevant to this site, one of the more clever lyrics in all of the 90s was “Does your love only come in a Volvo?”
I think Hardigree using this particular clip did the band a disservice. Any self-loathing I had in my grunge days would have been instantly redirected at these guys if I’d seen/heard this performance then.
Wow, you’re right… I never had the chance to see them live, but only listened to the Studio work. This performance is not indicative of how good that first album was.