Ah
yes, Placebo. Of all the bands to emerge from the British rock scene in the
1990s, they’re one of the most unique and indeed long lasting. Their sound was
unlike the Blur and Oasis acolytes surrounding them, combining the abrasion of
the American underground with a European sophistication. The secret ingredient
is a gritty, darkly sexual touch that had a long and storied history in British
music, from glam rock to Soft Cell and Depeche Mode but was almost forgotten at
that stage. They’ve 7 studio albums recorded, covering a variety of sounds and
styles, but still unmistakably them. Though their influence is widely
observable, from the dramatics of the goth leaning punk of AFI and My Chemical
Romance to a number of the post punk revival acts, there is still no band out there
quite like them.
(Originally published https://www.theodysseyonline.com/placebo-discography-guide)
Studio Albums
Their debut album is their scrappiest album, it’s
very much a case of three men in a room bashing out some of the finest slabs of
alternative rock that year. Genre wise it’s quite hard to place, it has the
quiet-loud dynamics of grunge but the guitars are more spiky than sludgy, it
has the intricacy of indie rock but it’s not nice enough to be indie and it’s
not horrible enough to fit in with the noise bands. There’s also somewhat of a
prog influence with all the weird instrumental breaks, ideas that aren’t fully
fleshed out but still work so well in the context of the song. The layers they
would go on to expand upon so masterfully in later albums are present, toy
instruments and a didgeridoo. As the sound is less fleshed out and more frantic
than their later work, the guitars spin off into some quite interesting
directions, the squealing chorus of “36 Degrees”, the ascending bridge of “I
Know”, the blaring yet oddly industrial thrust of “Bruise Pristine”. Lyrically
it is perhaps their most immature, but that lack of sophistication alongside
Brian’s emotional performance ties them close to punk and serves them quite well
in terms of a direct impact. You’re too lost in singing along to be all “decay
and way is too obvious a rhyme fuck you doing Brian”. It’s draped in filthy
sex, angst, drugs and alienation, the instrumental flights of fancy such as
those jazzy breakdowns with toy instruments in “Come Home” and “Bruise
Pristine” Alongside Without You I’m
Nothing, this is the generally accepted fan favourite, definitely lays out
everything they’d go on to do. Given just how much the snot, bile and semen
stains are what really make this band special, this is a truly great album.
Standout Tracks: The whole thing really, but
“Come Home”’s probably my favourite
Placebo track, “Nancy Boy” is what made their name at
the start of their career, “Bruise Pristine”’s got quite a kick to it, and I do have a soft spot for that dildo
ballad post-rock-grunge-whatever number that is “Bionic”.
Whether
you’d consider this Placebo properly hitting their stride or just tightening up
their sound, it can’t be denied that they’ve stepped up in terms of making a
more refined record. Here, those ideas are more developed rather than having a
lot of things flung at the wall. The harder numbers hit considerably harder,
the doomy, stoned over thump of “Pure Morning”, the voyeuristic noisepop of
“Brick Shithouse” and the juddering stop-start “Scared Of Girls”. The huge
singles are here too, the driving, punchy “Every You Every Me”, the crushing
wall of sorrow that is the title track, and of course my personal favourite
song, “You Don’t Care About Us”. It’s got such a lovely soft to vicious mix,
one of Stefan’s best basslines, delivered with such potent urgency. The slower
tracks do bring the record down on first listen however, taking longer to set
in. However this is a record where even if it doesn’t top the debut, it comes
damn close.
Standout Tracks: You Don’t Care About Us, Without You I’m Nothing, My Sweet Prince, Scared Of Girls, Pure Morning, Every You Every Me.
This
album pretty much follows in the footsteps of Without You I’m Nothing, with a darker take on that sound and more
in the way of electronic experimentation. At the same time though, though the
songs are quite good, there is an eerie mirror effect on the two tracklists.
“Taste In Men” being a gloomier “Pure Morning”, “Days Before You Came” being a
longing take on “Brick Shithouse”, you get the picture. It’s not so much
Placebo running out of ideas so much as them not stretching themselves, and
there’s some surprises here. “Spite And Malice” is Placebo doing rap rock, a
sentence I never thought I’d type out, which is somewhat pretty good. The
electronic layering really does enhance the likes of “Black Eyed” and “Slave To
The Wage”, but the quiet songs this time do drag quite a bit. On the heavier
end “Haemoglobin” fails to make much of an impact, almost a parody of their
strange lyricism and ear bleeding static. Overall while not a complete failure
and indeed quite good to brilliant in places, it does have some quire weak
moments on it.
This
album is the point where the grungy elements took a step back and the
electronics came to the fore. “Bulletproof Cupid”, a two minute instrumental
almost acts as a final send off to that style before we get into the record
properly. There’s a lot on here that could fit onto radio if it wasn’t a
strange as it is, “English Summer Rain” a deliciously dirty slice of dance
rock. “The Bitter End” was the big single off this album, and it is a massive
tune, a departure for Placebo with a quite post punky, stabbing, angular riff
and its almost apocalyptic ending. The slower tracks are helped out with the
increased electronics focus, most notably “Special Needs”. However the lyrics
are somewhat at their weakest, Brian’s love of rhymes can result in some clunky
lines at times, most notably in “This Picture”, which is still a lovely wee
tune. It’s most definitely a step in the right direction after Black Market Music, laying out what
would be Placebo 2.0.
Meds
was the last album Placebo did with long-time drummer Steve Hewitt, right at a
point in time where their drug and drinking habits were at quite bad points,
and that darkness and medicated haze hangs over this record. It is confidently
their finest record since the first two, with a far more balanced
reconciliation between their heavier past and their more textured present.
You’ve got some driving, strange yet still powerful alt-rock with the title
track, you’ve the alcohol stained revenge anthem of “Infra-Red”, the
Kerrangesque punch of “Because I Want You To” if you want rock. For their more
subtle moments, there’s the glacial “Follow The Cops Back Home”, the sweeping
“Song To Say Goodbye, the tenderness of “Pierrot The Clown”. Lyrically Brian’s
quite sharp here, with some truly heart-breaking parts, especially on “Song To
Say Goodbye”. Definitely a hard listen, but one of their best efforts, and
certainly a quite focused effort on their part.
This
was their first album with ex Evaline drummer Steve Forrest, recorded with
David Bottril of Tool production fame, and it is most certainly their most
American sounding record to date, with a lot more in the way of strings and
brass and bigger, hulkier riifs. “Kitty Litter” in particular has an almost nu
metal quality to the way that intro riff just grinds out of the speakers. The
light is embraced on this album, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse,
“Bright Lights” and “Ashtray Heart” being wonderful melodic numbers, “For What
It’s Worth” being far more Moulin Rouge than Poison. They’ve shed the darkness
somewhat, yet there are reflections back to it, with the record’s best song,
“Kings Of Medicine”. There’s a lot less
of the character and substance of the past on this album, but it is still an
enjoyable listen all the same, just doesn’t have the same replay value.
Coming
four years after Battle For The Sun,
it continued on in that lighter path, even taking on the topic of love where it
wasn’t frayed, or damaged, or emotionally destructive. This is easily their
weakest release, with songs like “Too Many Friends” and being quite clumsy.
However there are things to like in their more restrained numbers, “Exit
Wounds” taking the cake here. They can still drop some great alternative rock
bangers, with “Rob The Bank” and “Purify” being absolutely massive, but at the
same time, the aforementioned bodily fluids that have coloured their sound over
the years aren’t present here. It’s not a complete failure, but considering the
gap between releases it is a bit of a letdown.
Other Releases
This
is a collection of covers Placebo had recorded over the years, many of them
being B-sides to their other singles back when bands made B-sides or recorded
for soundtracks. It’s a quite good compilation, the sources of inspiration
ranging from the obvious (Depeche Mode, The Smiths) to the more offbeat (Boney
M). The best moments here would have to be their infamous bleak take on Kate
Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”, the glorious snarky “Bigmouth Strikes Again” and
their instrumental prowess is showed off best when they wile out on the guitar
on Robert Palmer’s “Johnny And Mary”. This is more for hardcore fans than an
essential purchase but fire up Spotify for some great music.
Once More With Feeling
(2004)
This
is pretty much a singles collection that came out that year, honestly we live
in an era of streaming so this isn’t really essential, I will give notice to
the new songs on it though. “Protégé Moi” is “Protect Me From What I
Want” in French and works all the better for it. “I Do” is a murky electronic
ballad of sorts, somewhat more wholesome that what you’d expect from this band
but still quite good. “Twenty Years” is a sorrowful meditation
on mortality and one of their best moments.
This album is pretty much an expanded, updated version of Once More With Feeling, taking on all
their singles, some album tracks, and revised/acoustic versions of other
tracks. Though I wouldn’t be as fond of some of the revised cuts, it is a very
worthy compilation of one of the best bands this planet has spawned. The new
material from this compilation includes recent single “Jesus' Son”, a surprisingly
lovely slice of anthemic alt rock, and “Lazarus”, light yet still
with that dark touch and some delicious strings.
The
B-Sides Collections
On
Spotify there’s B-Sides collections for all their albums up to Meds, it’d take quite a while to go
through them all, the later ones especially being dominated by covers, remixes
and tracks that are essentially strange instrumental experiments that are worth
a listen but not quite essential. The most essential one in this writer’s
opinion would be the Placebo: B-Sides collection. It’s the longest out of all of them, it
also has the most in terms of actual songs. There’s the damaged funk rock of “Drowning By Numbers”, one of their earliest
demos in “Flesh Machine” and the absolutely furious
“Slackerbitch”, a true hidden gem in
their catalogue.
B3 EP (2012)
This
is an EP they released prior to Loud Like
Love, it recaptures a lot of that dark, minor chord driven feeling that
their earlier work encapsulated, and is almost a bloodletting of the darkness
before the comparative light of the following album. It’s pretty decent, “I Know Where You Live” is quite sinister and “Time Is Money” is one of their better
songs from this period. It's an indication of where Placebo could have gone if that same darkness and malaise had been maintained throughout their career, and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't up for a full length in this vein.
So
there y’all have it, a guide to the discography of a truly singular band in the
world of alternative rock, hopefully you can find something to delve into here
at least.
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