"(Brian, Cambs E News, January 1997)
Today let's have a closer look on what the band think about their self-titled debut album. “Placebo” included ten songs and a hidden track and was released on June 12th 1996. Brian said that the record was very much about sex and full of youthful vigour and lust.
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| Photo credit unknown |
๐ ๐ฃ๐๐๐๐๐๐ข – ๐ณ๐๐น๐น ๐ฎ๐น๐ฏ๐๐บ
๐ต http://bit.ly/2vRWQbD ๐ต
The album was produced by Brad Wood and recorded in Dublin, Ireland. In an interview Brian remembered that they were drinking a lot of Guinness when they worked on the songs: “Dublin is like the pub that stay open all day every day so a lot of black stuff was consumed” (see quotes below).
“Placebo” is the only album that was recorded with the band's first drummer Robert Schultzberg. It was a respectable commercial success, as it peaked no. 5 in the UK and reached Platinum status for more than 300.000 sold copies. Five singles were released from the album (“Come home”, “36 degrees“, “Teenage Angst“, “Nancy Boy“and “Bruise Pristine“).
To see how Brian and Stefan feel about their first long-player I picked quite a few statements they made over the years. There's only one quote by Stef, but I put Brian's interview excerpts in chronological order, so you can see how his opinion on it changed as the years went by.
๐ ๐ฆ๐ง๐๐๐๐ก ๐ข๐ก ๐ง๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐จ๐ง ๐๐๐๐จ๐ ๐
๐ข "The first album's very youthful, full of lustful energy basically. We didn't spend that much time on that album. We wrote it in the studio and we hadn't been a band for very long. It's a bit more schizophrenic as well."
(Recovery Magazine, March 1999)
๐ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ก ๐ข๐ก ๐ง๐๐๐๐ฅ ๐๐๐๐จ๐ง ๐๐๐๐จ๐ ๐
๐ข "I have great affection for the characters in the songs, because to varying degrees they do have bits of me in them, and I think that the author's attitude towards his characters is not a judgmental one in any way. It's very affectionate, and it's filled with pathos. I think the album is like ten short stories, about the same thing, but from ten different points of view."
(Vox, February 1997)
๐ข "There's a lot of me in there. They're people I've been at one point in my life or emotion that I've felt. A combination of me and other people or me and a little spice. But I don't talk about anything which I haven't personally felt or experienced myself."
(Vox, February 1997)
๐ข "It's an exploration into somebody's misogyny yet heartfelt. It's angry, nasty, insulting and completely politically incorrect."
(Backbeat, March 1997)
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| Photo credit: Julian Broad |
(Air & Style, January 1998)
๐ข "We didn't want to make pure punk record, we wanted to make something that was colourful. The moodswings and frissons of Placebo's songs were carefully textured, using analogue synths, and more unorthodox sounds from toy instruments and a didgeridoo. "
(Air & Style, 1998)
๐ข "People could really hate the record, it could really annoy them - which would be cool. Indifference about it would piss me off more."
(Air & Style, 1998)
๐ข “You know the first album dealt with sex, drugs and rock and roll. Crazy sex, wild sex, sex on drugs, all that. On ‘Without you I'm nothing‘ we're dealing with the after effects of that.“
(Circus, May 1999)
๐ข “I mean what’s strange about that record is that I think it was incredibly commercial. We’d kind of become less and less commercial with every album but somehow managed to sell more records, which I think is great. It seems that chasing this elusive pop hit isn’t necessary. Just keep doing what you think is correct at the time and put as much honesty as possible, and then people stay loyal to what you’re doing.”
(MTV Supersonic 2004)
๐๐ฉ๐ข๐ต ๐ฅ๐ฐ ๐บ๐ฐ๐ถ ๐ณ๐ฆ๐ค๐ข๐ญ๐ญ ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ด๐ฆ ๐ฅ๐ข๐บ๐ด ๐ฐ๐ง ๐ต๐ฉ๐ฆ ๐ง๐ช๐ณ๐ด๐ต ๐ข๐ญ๐ฃ๐ถ๐ฎ?
๐ข “What I remember, we were in Dublin in Ireland, so I remember drinking a lot of Guinness, a lot of fine Guinness, and putting on some weight because we drank so much Guinness but it was fun, it was good, yeah. Dublin is like the pub that stay open all day every day so a lot of black stuff was consumed. Oh, that’d be nice if I can get a pint of Guinness right now!“
(MTV Supersonic 2004)
๐ข “We wrote most of the album in a council flat in Deptford. The way we sounded and looked was a reaction against the place. But also a lot of our cross-dressing and transvestism was a political statement against the music scene at the time which was very laddish and macho. We wanted to stand up and be counted. There's no better way to do that than by putting a bunch of slap on, wearing a skirt and f***ing with people's heads. People hated us for it and I adored that. Not getting a reaction was an anathema to me at the time. When I look back at the album, I see naivety, missed opportunities and mistakes. But you can get your knickers in a twist about it or you can just accept they're part of you. I view "Nancy Boy" in a way I imagine Radiohead look at „Creep“. I just wish the song that propelled us into the limelight had been a little bit better written. It's the lyrics that make me cringe most. They're me trying to find my feet.“
(Kerramg, June 2009)
Post by Silke
