Placebo
Once More With Feeling

THE REVIEW

Brian Molko, frontman of Placebo, regarding Once More With Feeling, an anthology that collects pieces from the last eight years of their career, stated: "Compiling a best-of is a bit like rereading the poems you wrote when you were sixteen: it’s a very painful thing, in some ways. Plus, Placebo has never been a 'singles' band: we write albums, not hits. Moreover, if it were up to us, we would have preferred to release a collection with b-sides and instrumental pieces, with something that sounded different from our usual production".

Well, this fifth work is a well-conceived album, in which the band's characteristic rock sound fuses perfectly with melancholic and restless lyrics, reminiscent of the concept of spleen (the existential boredom to which human nature is subject) extolled by Charles Baudelaire. It is an album from which one can trace the artistic excursus and musical evolution of a group much loved internationally.
Indeed, it starts with the singles from the first work, a hedonistic album among which 36 Degrees, with its hammering chorus, and Teenage Angst stand out. Then it's time for the songs taken from Without You I'm Nothing, which contains real gems: such is the case with Pure Morning, a hypnotic piece where Molko's voice leads into a parallel universe, You Don't Care About Us which manages to touch the deepest chords, and the title-track Without You I'm Nothing in which the frontman duets with the father of glam rock: David Bowie.
From the third album, Black Market Music, characterized by energetic, dynamic, and innovative pieces, emerge Slave To The Wage and Special K, a hallucinatory song in which Molko sings: "No hesitation, no delay, you come on just like special K, just like I swallowed half mystash, I never ever want to crash, no hesitation, no delay, you come on just like special K, now you're back with done demand, I'm sinking sand, gravity, no escaping gravity, no escaping, not for free, I fall down hit the ground, make a heavy sound, every time you seem to come around".
The fourth work, Sleeping With Ghosts, is an album different from the previous one, because it is characterized by the return of sick, obsessive, and almost morbid music; its songs have, in fact, the great power to lead the listener into an exceptional sound spiral: such is the case with English Summer Rain, where it is obsessively repeated "Start again, start again". Very peculiar is Protege Moi, the French remake of Protect Me From What I Want, in which the singer's voice, sometimes alluring, sometimes annoying, asks to be protected from what he desires.
The last tracks are unreleased. I Do is characterized by the use of guitars that manage not only to distort the sound but also the sound atmosphere; Tweny Years, on the other hand, leaves room for a darker and more melancholic atmosphere, caused by the transience of existence.

The album, in my opinion, presents only one "off-key note," namely the absence of one of the English band's best pieces: I Know.