♦️𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬: 𝗔 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗨𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠♦️ :

Today we celebrate the ♦️𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬♦️ of the compilation double album 🎶“𝗔 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗨𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠“🎶 which offers a retrospective on 20 years of Placebo's creative output. It was released six years ago on October 7th 2016 as part of the band's 20th anniversary celebrations and reached no. 21 in the UK Albums Chart. The compilation was released as double CD, digital download and as limited edition deluxe box set pink vinyl and black vinyl. It was accompanied by a 32-page booklet featuring previously unpublished photos. Brian wrote a beautiful foreword to the album which you can read below.

”A place for us to dream” consists of 36 tracks, including songs off albums, single versions, radio edits, live performances and redux editions of previously released tracks. It includes all Placebo songs that have been released as singles, apart from "Burger Queen Français", "Twenty Years" and "The Never-Ending Why".
The compilation's title ”A place for us to dream” comes from the lyrics of the song "Narcoleptic" that can be found on Placebo's third studio album “Black market music”. The album cover is a picture taken during the 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot (explanation below).

Photo credit: Cover of the album, unknown, ainesk, Martin Schechler / edit by Silke

📀 𝐀 𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐔𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌
CD 1 🎵 https://bit.ly/3cbNaIE 🎵
CD 2 🎵 https://bit.ly/3b4AWRN 🎵

📜 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡'𝗦 𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗗 𝗧𝗢 “𝗔 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗨𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠“
Ladies and Gentlemen, and those of you who find yourselves in-between.
There’s a story in here somewhere, though I’m still not sure what it’s about. It’s a long movie that jumps forwards and backwards in time. There are two main characters, a very important supporting role, and guys who hit objects for a living who come and go.
Every now and then there’s a glorious cameo.
I don’t know what it all means, even though I’m the one who edited the film. I still haven’t watched it back all way through. Please have the courage to do what I can’t. Watch it from beginning to end. Take one long deep breath, allowing it all into your body as a whole and recognise the sensation in your soul. I’m still too afraid to do so.
This album is for you, not for me.
Dream of a place where we all belong.
I hope to meet you there one day.
With love,
Brian Molko
Ibiza, June 2016

Photo credit: Mondadori Portfolio 

📷 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥
The picture was taken on June 15th 2011 by photojournalist Richard Lam during the Vancouver Stanley Cup riot and became worldwide famous as “𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗥𝗶𝗼𝘁 𝗞𝗶𝘀𝘀“. According to Brian it's “𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑜𝑠. 𝐼𝑡'𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑙𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑔𝑠𝑡 𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑟“.

The Stanley Cup Final 2011 took place between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins. The Canucks' defeat sent the team's fans into a frenzy and ended in a riot. The police had to intervene to contain the chaos that had settled in the city. Also passers-by who just wanted to go home were stuck in the riot. And among these people was the couple featured on the cover.

This couple, Alex Thomas and her Australian boyfriend Scott Jones, were not participating in the riot. But they were in the street as the police stepped in. Alex was pushed by a police officer, inhaled tear gas and fell to the ground. She began to panic and shake. So Scott leaned over her and tried to calm and comfort her with a kiss. Richard Lam captured this moment in his iconic photograph which was called "the most compelling sports image of the year" by Sports Illustrated. First many viewers suspected the scene had been staged but evidence soon revealed the truth.
In June 2016 it was reported that Alex and Scott have moved to Perth, Australia, where they sleep under a poster of their “Riot Kiss“.

At least 140 people were injured during thus incident, one of them critically. Four people were stabbed and nine police officers were hurt in the riot. Alltogether 101 people were arrested. In 2015, four years after the riot, the police investigation was finished. It led to 887 charges against more than 300 people.

Photo credit: Marco Vittur

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥 𝗣𝗛𝗢𝗧𝗢 📌
📢 “The point of the cover is about beauty amongst chaos, it's about love amongst violence and anger and that kind of dichotomy. I mean what's really important to stress is that this is a real photograph, it's an amazing piece of photohournalism and that is the first time that the couple met and they are still together.“
(M2 Petofi, Napi durrana, 2016)

📌 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗔 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘 𝗙𝗢𝗥 𝗨𝗦 𝗧𝗢 𝗗𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗠“ 📌
𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘪𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘢 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵?
📢 “We’re stretching the 20th anniversary of Placebo over quite a long time. We started all that in 2014 because that was 20 years since we formed and we’re going until this year because that’s when the first album came out. This feels like a good time to do a proper respective, our last one was all singles and this time we wanted to do a mixture of the songs that have been the most commercially successful and the ones we feel have most artistic merit. It’s not a Greatest Hits.”

𝘞𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘥𝘪𝘧𝘧𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘥𝘪𝘥𝘯’𝘵?
📢 “It was difficult. Placing songs from 1996 next to songs from 2016 is a big leap when it comes to Placebo, but there is a thread. We wanted to start on a high and end on a high and then it goes up and down in between. It’s a journey with a lot of despair, but a bit of hope.”

𝘞𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘬𝘴 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘶𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘺 𝘵𝘰 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘰𝘧𝘧?
📢 “We’ve not included ‘Twenty years’, which I think is a classic Placebo track. We had to be a bit cruel this time.”
(hmv London, October 6h 2016)

Post by Silke