It was played live 409 times over the years, and between 1995 and 2017 there was not one single year when it wasn't brought on stage at least once.
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| Photo credit: Stefan de Batselier, Screenshots from the video / edit by Silke |
🎬 𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗧 – 𝗢𝗙𝗙𝗜𝗖𝗜𝗔𝗟 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢
🎵 http://bit.ly/2VMY1DI 🎵
The music clip was directed by Trevor Robinson. It shows the band members locked in a red latex cube, all three of them are dressed in the same red colour. Several teenagers also enter this cube and show how anxious they are.
📌 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗕𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢 𝗖𝗟𝗜𝗣 📌
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “It was sunny, it was a summer day.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “I had tonsillitis.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “It’s got a very suggestive entrance.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “This video was directed by Trevor Robinson, who responsible for the Tango adverts, where the fat orange man slaps people across the faces. I think is the only video he made. Maybe because the experience of working with us must be so traumatic, he’s never made one again.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “It was very very hot. It was like a box, so no air conditioning.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “As you can see, this is before we start work with professional stylists.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “There was a big deal about this guy. His parents had to give permission for us to shave his head.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “There was a hoo-ha about the scissors. Because that’s a video police regulation – you can have closed scissors but not open scissors, so the director was nervous, but you can have clippers, obviously.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “It’s obviously not shot inside that box.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “That was what we call a tongue piercing. Have you had much experience with tongue piercings?“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “I don’t like them. I don’t like metal against teeth.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “I find it quite nice, really. Hot and cold, you know? Kind of fleshy and metal.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “Don’t like that either.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “It’s quite nice. What the hell are we wearing?“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “Red. We’re trying to break that latex.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “Put that away.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “It was very durable.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯 & 𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦: “This kid is angry.“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯:“Yeah, those kids are really angry.“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘧𝘢𝘯: “Did that hurt?“
𝘉𝘳𝘪𝘢𝘯: “No!“
𝘚𝘵𝘦𝘷𝘦: “He felt nowt.“
(“Once more with feeling“ DVD, 2004)
The demo version of "Teenage Angst" from 1995 includes the line “Well I was suicidal once / but now honestly I am fine“ which was replaced by “Airs and social graces / elocution so divine“ in the version that was finally released. I think the record label wasn't too happy about the lyrics dealing with suicide and so the song text had to be changed.
📀 𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗧 – 𝗗𝗘𝗠𝗢 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 (𝟵𝟱)
📌 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗛𝗜𝗦𝗧𝗢𝗥𝗬 📌
“Teenage Angst“ is part of the band's repertoire prior to the release of their debut album in 1996. It has been performed in notably different versions. It was played live 414 confirmed times over the years, and between 1995 and 2017 there was not one single year when it wasn't brought on stage at least once. The first time ever was on January 23rd 1995 at Rock Garden in London. This was also the very first Placebo concert. The last time “Teenage Angst“ was played live was on October 8th 2017 in Dundee, Scotland, during the “20 years“ anniversary tour.
The original version was staged up until 2000. A piano-based version was played during the “Black market music“, “Meds“ and „Battle for the sun“ tours.
During the „Sleeping with ghosts“ tour “Teenage Angst“ was played with a hip-hop inspired drum beat. At the end of the “Battle for the sun“ tour in 2010, the song was performed with a new arrangement. Another rework appeared during the “Loud like love“ tour.
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| Photo credit: Screenshot from the official video |
📢 ”That’s a song that refuses to die. That’s a classic, because if you cover it in three different ways, then it has to be a classic [laughs].”
(Vanyaland, October 18th 2013)
📢 "Well, that was something my mother said to me: She was talking about ageing, wrinkling, skin drying up and stuff. This was when I was about 14. She said that as soon as you pop out of the womb you start to deteriorate. I actually found her words quite disturbing but, y'know, she's a religious kind of person."
(Vox, July 1996)
🎬 𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗧 – 𝗣𝗜𝗔𝗡𝗢 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡
📢 “We kind of keep re-writing a lot of songs in order for them to become playable for us so that we can connect with them. Most recently, we’re on our fourth version of “Teenage Angst” from the first album. We have a brand new version of that, which is actually my favorite of the tour. It took 20 years since I wrote that song for us to settle on what I think is the definitive version, but that’s ok.“
(Pure Volume, September 12th 2013)
📢 “When we do stuff from the first album, we try to do different versions. We have an interesting hip-hop version of 'Teenage Angst' at the moment. I am having a lot of fun with it, it gives me a chance to do my Bono bit with a wireless microphone. I am doing that more and more.”
(The Sentimentalist - Issue XII, 2003)
📢 “That's the difference between "Teenage Angst" and the new version of the song, which has become very melancholic, which we transformed more and more to that during our tour. We want to explore the scope of our skills more and more and the tendency is towards melancholy. But we can say about ourselves today, when we go there, we really go in that direction, it's not playing around anymore, the emotions are real, we don't need to pretend to anything. When you see us on stage on our next tour, you really see us. That's Placebo.”
(Discover, September 1998)
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| Photo credit: Scarlet Page, Screenshots from the video / edit by Silke |
𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘵𝘰 '𝘛𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘢𝘨𝘦 𝘈𝘯𝘨𝘴𝘵' 𝘴𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥: '𝘚𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘯, 𝘐 𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘺...' 𝘈 𝘨𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘣𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘬 𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦.
📢 "But it's true. As soon as you pop out of the womb, you start to die. It's the paradox that you begin life but you also begin death. The use of toy instruments enables us to communicate that on a sonic level."
(Guitarist, August 1997)
🎬 𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗧 – 𝗛𝗜𝗣 𝗛𝗢𝗣 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡
📢 "When I was a teenager, I felt things in more passionate ways, I've gone through rebellion phases. I was feeling depressed, I felt like the world was about to collapse. A sort of alienation towards parents, a rebellion against what they wanted me to become, against growing, going through this kind of changes. My emotions were going in many directions because physically, I was becoming an adult. I was longing for it, but I was still dealt with as a child. Art and creativity were minor things, unknown in my familly. That's surely for that reason, I reacted so violently. I became the ugly duckling: my father wanted me to become a businessman, and my mother wanted me to be a saint. Finally, I satisfied none of them. At this age, music can represent many things, be the last emergency exit. Play guitar was a sort of outlet to my familly troubles, to authority. My parents didn't contribute at all to what I am today and that's marvellous. I am here today only by myself. I need to have success, very selfishly, to refute all people who thought I would not go far in life, to show it to the people who were better than me at school, my rivals in every way, my parents.”
(Les Inrocks, August 13th 1996)
📢 "I've always been a loner. The three of us are like that, we have gone through adolescence locked in our room, playing music. And like many boys this age, I was dreaming to become a star. A city like Luxembourg can be stifling when you try to forge your identity. I couldn't be myself there. I felt secluded there, far from the places where I wanted to be. There was no place where I could have expressed myself, found a feedback. From this isolation, I made songs, 'Teenage Angst' or 'Burger Queen', because fatally that made me a voyeur. It's not the best place to observe the world.”
(Les Inrockuptibles N°169, August 14th 1998)
🎬 𝗧𝗘𝗘𝗡𝗔𝗚𝗘 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗦𝗧 – 𝗟𝗜𝗩𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗝𝗢𝗢𝗟𝗦 𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗔𝗡𝗗 (𝟭𝟵𝟵𝟳)
🎵 https://bit.ly/3JU0Fig 🎵
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| Photo credit: Screenshot from the official video |
Shine the headlight,
Straight into my eyes.
Like the roadkill,
I'm paralysed.
You see through my disguise
At the drive-in,
Double feature,
Pull the lever,
Break the fever
And say your last goodbyes.
Since I was born
I started to decay
Now nothing ever
Ever goes my way
One fluid gesture,
Like stepping back in time
Trapped in amber, petrified
I’m still not satisfied
Airs and social graces,
Elocution so divine
I’ll stick to my needle
And my favourite waste of time
Both spineless and sublime
Since I was born
I started to decay
Now nothing ever
Ever goes my way
Post by Silke
