♦️𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬: 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧♦️

Dear soulmates,
we have a second ♦️𝗔𝗡𝗡𝗜𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗔𝗥𝗬♦️ to celebrate: On October 7th 2016 Placebo did not only release the retrospective album “A place for us to dream” about which we talked earlier today, but also the limited edition vinyl EP and download 🎶“𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧"🎶.

The record consists of six songs, half of them cover versions. It was produced by Adam Noble and Placebo. Stefan Olsdal, Bill Lloyd and Adam Noble engineered the tracks.
In an interview with NME in October 2017 Brian stated that two songs on the EP, the Talk Talk cover “Life's what you make it” and the Placebo single “Jesus' son”, are “possibly two of the most commercial tracks that we've ever done. We have a tendency to react allergically against what we’ve just done, so it's highly likely that the next thing we do will be something akin to career suicide. ” Well, it wasn't, as we know by now. ;-)

Photo credit: Unknown, cover of the EP / edit by Silke

📀 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧 (𝗘𝗣)
🎵 https://spoti.fi/3pZHBpy 🎵

📜 𝗧𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗟𝗜𝗦𝗧
1. Life's what you make it (Talk Talk cover)
2. Jesus' son
3. Twenty years (live at Europavox Festival 2015)
4. Autoluminescent (Rowland S. Howard cover)
5. Twenty years (piano version live at Evening Urgant, Moscow 2016)
6. Song #6 (Freak Power cover)


In June 2017 a video for the EP's title song was released. It was directed by Sasha Rainbow and filmed at Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana, the site of one of the world's largest electronic waste dumps. The video concept by Brian was loosely based around the original 1986 Talk Talk clip in which frontman Mark Hollis and company are surrounded by nature and “little beasties crawling over leaves”. What he had in mind was an updated version wherein Placebo “would be robots playing instruments and that e-waste would replace nature, as it appears to be doing only a few decades after the song’s original release” (Xs Noise, June 5th 2017) . But Brian also said that the video is not anti-technology. ”It is about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity that has not been chosen” (Gigwise, June 15th 2017). He added that he hopes it will make the viewer think about the repercussions of just throwing away tech that doesn't work anymore. ”There are several new and ingenious ways to recycle them these days. Some companies will even give you money for it. All it takes is a little more effort.”

🎬 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧 (𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢)
🎵 https://bit.ly/3r1yPW6 🎵

Photo credit: Unknown, screenshots from the video / edit by Silke

📌 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 ”𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧” 📌
📢 “Life’s what you make it” is kind of a slogan to wake up to each day, you know? Sometimes I wake up with panic attacks and I just have to tell myself that this will pass and that there are a lot of good things to live for. There are a lot of things that I appreciate and I am thankful for everything that I have.“
(Fourculture, October 3rd 2016)

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗟𝗘 𝗦𝗢𝗡𝗚 📌
📢 "We covered Talk Talk's 'Life's what you make it' because it is a song from the 80s that we still liked and we wondered if we could replicate Gwen Stefani's global smash hit with her band's cover of [Talk Talk's] 'It's My Life'. That remains to be seen...”
(The Independent, June 2nd 2017)

Post by Silke

𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧

“Life's what you make it” is a 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘛𝘢𝘭𝘬 𝘤𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 that was released on the same-titled EP on October 7th 2016, on the same day as the retrospective double album “A place for us to dream”.

🎬 𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧

🎵 https://bit.ly/3r1yPW6 🎵

Photo credit: unknown, screenshots from the video, edit by Sílke

The song was produced by Adam Noble and Placebo. Stefan Olsdal, Bill Lloyd and Noble engineered the track. The official video was directed by 𝘚𝘢𝘴𝘩𝘢 𝘙𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘣𝘰𝘸 and filmed at Agbogbloshie in Accra, one of the the world's largest e-waste dumps located in Ghana.

The video concept by Brian was loosely based around the original 1986 Talk Talk clip in which frontman Mark Hollis and company are surrounded by nature and “little beasties crawling over leaves”. What he had in mind was an updated version wherein “Placebo would be robots playing instruments and that e-waste would replace nature, as it appears to be doing only a few decades after the song’s original release”.

Brian said about Sasha that he "called her up to sound her out and discovered that I was speaking to a very brave and passionate woman“. He added that he told her she had balls of steel for actually daring to go film on this location in Ghana and that "no, we would not be coming, since we were timid little souls."
In another interview with NME Brian stated that “Life's what you make it” and also the single “Jesus' son”, are “possibly two of the most commercial tracks that we've ever done. We have a tendency to react allergically against what we’ve just done, so it's highly likely that the next thing we do will be something akin to career suicide.”

Photo credit: The Vibe Asia

📌 𝗦𝗧𝗘𝗙𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 “𝗟𝗜𝗙𝗘'𝗦 𝗪𝗛𝗔𝗧 𝗬𝗢𝗨 𝗠𝗔𝗞𝗘 𝗜𝗧“ 📌
📢 “Life’s what you make it” is kind of a slogan to wake up to each day, you know? Sometimes I wake up with panic attacks and I just have to tell myself that this will pass and that there are a lot of good things to live for. There are a lot of things that I appreciate and I am thankful for everything that I have.“
(Fourculture, October 3rd 2016)

📌 𝗕𝗥𝗜𝗔𝗡 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢 📌
📢 “I think it's important to point out that the official video of “Life's what you make it“ is not against technology. It would be ridiculous, we know how it enriches our lives.[…] However, we hope this video will make people think about the repercussions that this entails when one simply throws away the technological equipment which no longer works.There are new ingenious ways to recycle them today.“
(The Independent, 2016)

📢 “The video is not anti-technology. It is about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity that has not been chosen.”
(Gigwise, June 15th 2017)

Photo credit: Maud Maillard 

📌 𝗦𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗔 𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗕𝗢𝗪 𝗢𝗡 𝗧𝗛𝗘 𝗩𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗢 📌
📢 “I hoped to capture the environment in a dreamily meditative way that would at once juxtapose and yet synergise with the theme of the song and glimpse at a part of the repercussions of our current technological revolution. Technology on the one hand is enabling us to create things beyond our wildest imagination, and yet little discussion has been had about what to do with all our discarded e-waste."
(Gigwise, June 15th 2017)

📢 ”I loved the Talk Talk version of the song, so I went back to the original music video and took it as a starting point. As music video directors, we store up lots of visual and art references. I remember seeing these journalistic photos of Abogbloshie and I thought well, our subject’s e-waste and the song’s called ‘Life’s what you make it’. I don’t think we could have anything more clear than actually going to one of these places and filming there. It seemed very obvious to me.”
(uDiscover Music, 2016)

📌 𝗦𝗔𝗦𝗛𝗔 𝗥𝗔𝗜𝗡𝗕𝗢𝗪 – 𝗕𝗔𝗦𝗜𝗖 𝗜𝗡𝗙𝗢 📌
Sasha Rainbow is an award winning director who has worked across multiple disciplines including film, art direction, photography and costume. She started her first documentary “Kofi and Lartey“, which is set on the e-waste dump Agbogbloshie, after the „Life is what you make it“ video was recorded. Placebo are executive producers of the film. Sasha's other short documentary “Kamali“ is about a seven year old Indian girl who is breaking gender stereotypes through skateboarding. It was longlisted for an Oscar and nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards (BAFTA). Her Wild Beasts “Alpha Female“ music video features women skateboarding in India and was shared by Tony Hawk. An interview about it with BBC World Service went viral with over 600,000 people watching it within a week. Her work for Toyota was the largest campaign in South East Asia in 2018. Sasha believes that storytelling “can throw light onto underrepresented communities to showcase heroic role models, which is just what the world needs“.

Post by Silke

𝐏𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄𝐁𝐎 & 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐌𝐒: 𝐊𝐎𝐅𝐈 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐋𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐄𝐘

𝐊𝐨𝐟𝐢 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐞𝐲 (2018) is a short documentary directed by Sasha Rainbow.
Placebo are featured as executive producers of the film.

It is a look into a world that few know exists: the film tells the story of two young boys who work on the electronic waste dump of Agbogbloshie, Ghana, considered to be one of the most toxic places on earth. When given the cameras to tell their own stories, they begin to dream of a life beyond the electronic waste dump and back into education. The film depicts the efforts of Abdallah, a young man determined to give hope and self-belief to the children of the area.

📍The story of creating the film is connected to Placebo searching for a director who could bring to life their idea for 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞’𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐈𝐭 video. The song, which is Talk Talk cover, was released as the lead track on Placebo EP of the same name.

𝐏𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐨 - 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞’𝐬 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐈𝐭 (𝐎𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥 𝐯𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐨)
🎶https://bit.ly/3aCtcar

📍𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 had in mind a video wherein “the band would be robots playing instruments and that e-waste would replace nature, as it appears to be doing only a few decades after the song’s original release”.
The brief the band sent to prospective filmmakers was short, and its message (“e-waste, please!”) open to interpretation. The lone response to excite Placebo came from 𝑺𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒂 𝑹𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒘, a director with considerable experience in both the music and fashion industries.
📢Brian got to talk to Sasha Rainbow: "I called her up to sound her out and discovered that I was speaking to a very brave and passionate woman." Mr. Molko admitted that the director had “balls of steel” for daring to travel to West Africa to make the resulting film.

So, both Kofi and Lartey documentary and Life’s What You Make It video were filmed at the same time and are tightly intertwined.

📖𝑲𝒐𝒇𝒊 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑳𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒚: 𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕
When Abdallah was growing up as an orphan in Northern Ghana, his grandmother taught him the importance of education to find his own way in the world. When she died, he travelled south in search of work and found himself in Agbogbloshie, a commercial district in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Agbogbloshie has one of the world’s biggest electronic waste dumps, home to 100,000 people. He spent long days enduring gruelling physical work and inhaling toxic fumes as he burned plastic off wires to extract valuable copper. This work financed Abdallah’s education and inspired him later to help children escape Agbogbloshie for a better life. Interested in how the media was portraying Agbogbloshie and its residents, Abdallah built a children’s play centre and began a film project with two 12-year-old boys, Kofi and Lartey, to give them the opportunity to tell their own story. When a huge flood hit Accra, killing 150 people, it plunged the city into chaos. This included forced eviction of tenants as government agents bulldozed their homes and demolished Abdallah’s children’s centre. Abdallah felt silenced and defeated but encouraged the boys themselves to film the world around them and reveal their true dreams and ambitions for their future.

Photo credit: Joseph Llanes

📢𝑺𝒂𝒔𝒉𝒂 𝑹𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒃𝒐𝒘 explains her idea behind the film:
“I really wanted to show that these people are survivors and show how strong they are,” she stresses. “The place might look like hell on earth, but it was lively. Humans get by, you know? They celebrate, they have fun, play soccer, have family gatherings and play music when they take things to sell in the marketplace. It’s actually an incredibly optimistic, spirited place.”
(𝑢𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑀𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑐, 𝐽𝑢𝑛𝑒 5, 2017)

📢“I wanted to tell a human story from within the environment, a story that the audience could relate to and empathise with - a story of human strength within the harshest of environments, a real-life Wall-E. It was important for me to bring insight into what it is really like to live and work in such a toxic environment from an insider's perspective. Of all the documentaries I have seen on Agbogbloshie, the interaction with the locals has been stilted and tense, but I believe children are innocent reflections of the adult world and by working closely with the younger generation we can offer an original viewpoint of life on the e-waste dump.”
(www.kofiandlarteyfilm.com)

📢𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐: "I think that it is important to stress that the video is not anti-technology," Molko added. "That would be ridiculous, considering how much it enriches our daily lives. To me, it is about the triumph of the human spirit in the face of adversity that has not been chosen.
We do, however, hope that it will make the viewer think about the repercussions of just throwing away tech that doesn't work anymore. There are several new and ingenious ways to recycle tech these days. Some companies will even give you money for it. All it takes is a little more effort.”
(𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝐽𝑢𝑛𝑒 2, 2017)

💬𝑊ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑑𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑛𝑘, 𝑠𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑚𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑠, 𝑖𝑠 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑚𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑠 𝑎 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑎 𝑡𝑜 𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑤 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑒𝑛𝑣𝑖𝑟𝑜𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑚𝑠?

Sourses: kofiandlarteyfilm.com, uDiscover Music, Independent
Photo credit pic 1: kofiandlarteyfilm.com, Michael Hobdell / edit by Olga

Post by Olga