🎵 𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬: 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗕𝗢'𝗦 𝗗𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 🎵

"𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒂𝒍𝒃𝒖𝒎 𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒖𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒄𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒊𝒎𝒎𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂𝒄𝒚 𝒐𝒇 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒘𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆."
(Brian Molko, Cambs E News, January 1997)

Photo credits down below

Placebo's self-titled debut album was released 26 years ago today on June 17th 1996 and reached no. 5 in the UK Album Chart. It was recorded at Westland Studios in Dublin and is the only album that features the band's first drummer Robert Schultzberg.


“Placebo” is a very sexual record, packed full of youthful vigor and lust and it deales with sex, drugs and rock and roll. "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”, Brian said about the characters in the songs (see quotes below). But at the same time the album is a collection of short stories. According to Brian the band wanted to “take you on a journey, an emotional rollercoaster, with little surprises here and there, instead of just having a blanket sound”.


📀 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗕𝗢 (𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗹𝗯𝘂𝗺)
🎵 http://bit.ly/2vRWQbD 🎵


📜 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧
01. Come home
02. Teenage Angst
03. Bionic
04. 36 degrees
05. Hang on to your IQ
06. Nancy Boy
07. I know
08. Bruise Pristine
09. Lady of the flowers
10. Swallow
11. H.K. Farewell (hidden track)


Five singles were released from the record: “Come home“, “36 degrees“, “Teenage Angst“, “Nancy Boy“ and “Bruise Pristine“. All songs on “Placebo“ were produced by Brad Wood, except for “Nancy Boy”, which was produced and mixed by Phil Vinall. The album was remastered and reissued in 2006 for its 10th anniversary, including demos and a DVD featuring live performances and music videos.


The album cover with the boy in the red hoodie was taken by Saul Fletcher. The young guy is his cousin David Fox. In 2012 Fox sued the band because allegedly the photo was used without consent.
Read the whole story here:
👉 http://bit.ly/2v6GYBB

Photo credit unknown

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗕𝗢“ 📌
📢 “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 transvesticism 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 fucking with people’s heads. People hated us for it and I adored that. Not getting a reaction was 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 similar way that 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 the most. They’re me trying to find my feet. You have to listen to the album tracks to find where I really was.”
(Kerrang, July 2009)


📢 “I mean what’s strange about that record is that I think it was incredibly commercial.”
(MTV Supersonic, 2004)


📢 "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)


📢 "It's an exploration into somebody's misogyny yet heartfelt. It's angry, nasty, insulting and completely politically incorrect."
(Backbeat, March 1997)

Photo credit: Mary Scanlon

📢 "The first album was a very sexual record, packed full of youthful vigor and lust.“
(Real Detroit Weekly, March 18th 1999)


📢 "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. 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)


📢 "You run the risk on the first album of making a record that has one particular sound, that runs the whole way through it. And we wanted ours to be like a collection of short stories, approach every single song individually with the orchestration and vocal styles. We wanted to take you on a journey, an emotional rollercoaster, with little surprises here and there, instead of just having a blanket sound."
(Cambs E News, January 1997)


Photo credit pic 1: Cover of the album, photo credits unknown except for the black and white pics (Ian Tilton, Corinne Day) / Edit by Silke

Post by Silke

PLACEBO'S DEBUT ALBUM

"𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗹𝗯𝘂𝗺 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮𝗰𝘆 𝗼𝗳 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲.
"(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.

Photo credit unknown

📀 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗖𝗘𝗕𝗢 – 𝗳𝘂𝗹𝗹 𝗮𝗹𝗯𝘂𝗺
🎵 http://bit.ly/2vRWQbD 🎵

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.


📌 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗥 𝗗𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 📌
📢 "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)

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗜𝗥 𝗗𝗘𝗕𝗨𝗧 𝗔𝗟𝗕𝗨𝗠 📌
📢 "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)

📢 "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)

📢 "It's an exploration into somebody's misogyny yet heartfelt. It's angry, nasty, insulting and completely politically incorrect."
(Backbeat, March 1997)

Photo credit:  Julian Broad

📢 "You run the risk on the first album of making a record that has one particular sound, that runs the whole way through it. And we wanted ours to be like a collection of short stories, approach every single song individually with the orchestration and vocal styles. We wanted to take you on a journey, an emotional rollercoaster, with little surprises here and there, instead of just having a blanket sound."
(Air & Style, January 1998)

📢 "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)

📢 "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)

📢 “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)

📢 “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)

𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘥𝘰 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘴𝘦 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘣𝘶𝘮?
📢 “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)

📢 “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