More about: Placebo

In the wake of Placebo's new album Never Let Me Go, we took a deep dive into the duo's discography to see what we could find in the way of underrated cuts.

'Drag'

Appearing on fan favourite album Meds, ‘Drag’ would surely have been a single on a weaker record. It’s immediate, catchy and refines Placebo’s early energy with a more refined production. “I had just fallen in love and wanted to write a song about feeling inferior to someone,” Brian Molko told Rock Mag about the song. “You think that the person you love is perfect and you just feel like a piece of shit on their shoe.”

'Follow the Cops Back Home'

A softer, contemplative track on the same album, ‘Follow the Cops Back Home’ is built around a mournful guitar line from Stefan Olsdal and was inspired by visiting Iceland and later meeting Sigur Ros. “Those guys are 25 and already have got 7-year-old kids. Seeing that, I said, ‘are you crazy? Is there really so little to do in Iceland?’” Molko remembers (per Rock Mag). “They replied ‘yeah, that’s why we get drunk and fuck.’ This trip to Iceland inspired us, made us think about what you do when you live in a place like Luxembourg or Iceland where there’s nothing to do. Most of the time, you just go looking for trouble.” Formerly a live favourite, hopefully it finds its way back to setlists again.

'Exit Wounds'

The best song from 2013’s overlooked Loud Like Love album, ‘Exit Wounds’ opens with heavily processed percussion and a murmured verse before, right on cue, kicking into the kind of arena-filling chorus that Placebo could write in their sleep by now. 

“The way I see it is if I can’t have you, and there’s nothing else I can replace you with then I’d rather be dead,” says Stefan Olsdal about Molko’s desperate lyrics (per Bandwagon). “It’s not something that I personally experience; it is a very extreme place to be in.”

'Centrefolds'

Lowering the curtain on their brilliant 2003 album Sleeping with Ghosts, ‘Centrefolds’ is another barebones piece, Olsdal’s piano backed by a brushed drumkit to deliver Molko’s haunting words. “[It’s] someone telling a washed-up celebrity ‘I’m the best you can get now so you’d better be mine.’ It’s about obsession, questions of status and self-degradation.”

'Speak in Tongues'

A real shape shifter, ‘Speak in Tongues’ is full of mystery and menace in its first two minutes, guitar harmonics, tinkling pianos and stuttering drums, before opening up into a widescreen rock chorus, guitars set to “anthem”. The guarded verses are contrasted by a refrain sung with open arms: “We can build a new tomorrow, today”. It’s also touring violinist, keyboardist and vocalist Fiona Brice’s favourite song to play live, so it gets extra points for that.

'Happy You’re Gone'

A melodic break-up song, ‘Happy You’re Gone’ is rumoured to be about the band’s split from former drummer Steve Hewitt (although this has never been confirmed) and finds Molko in turmoil on its chorus “How many times? How many times? Now I can't look you in the eye”. The swelling strings and more restrained pace were a marker of this period of Placebo, pointing to the direction they’d take on next album Loud Like Love.

'Second Sight'

A punked-up, breakneck rock song that pulses on Olsdal’s inventive bass playing, ‘Second Sight’ is a welcome burst of energy on Sleeping with Ghosts’ side B. “A one-night-stand song saying walk away for your own self-respect,” Molko said simply of the content. Extra credit for simply intoning “Third verse same as the first” in lieu of writing a middle eight.

'Kings of Medicine'

The final track on Battle for the Sun, ‘Kings of Medicine’ builds from palm-muted acoustic guitar, culminating in a final chorus splashed with brass fanfares. It’s still restrained though, never hitting the distortion pedal or exploding in a flurry of heavy percussion. The lyrics read as an addict struggling to sober up.

'Hang on to Your IQ'

An outlier on their debut self-titled record in treading a slower tempo, ‘Hang On To Your IQ’ rolls along on its stoned rhythm, guitars strummed with a loose wrist. For all the world it sounds like the hangover from the debauchery taking place on the rest of the album. “That’s the most story-like song on the album,” Molko said to NME in 1998. “The person in ‘Hang On To Your IQ’ is so self-conscious they can’t operate properly sexually, which we all go through at certain times in our lives.”

'Pierrot the Clown'

A morose song about abusive relationships, Placebo strip things back to a toy piano and distant drums, with clean guitar strums. A difficult, contemplative narrative, we’ll let Molko (speaking to Rock Mag in 2006) tackle the subject matter. “It’s a song about destructive relationships, violent relationships. After having written it, I realised that it could well have been about family relations as well as between lovers. A lot of songs – mainly Country – talk about women being hit by their husbands. In “Pierrot the Clown,” the target of the violence is a man. A vulnerable man, trapped in a violent and destructive relationship".

'Narcoleptic'

Appearing at the tail-end of 2000’s experimental ‘Black Market Music’ album, ‘Narcoleptic’ uses the disorder as a metaphor for the stupor brought on by drug abuse, with a lackadaisical arrangement of lilting drums and meandering guitar suiting the mood perfectly. Here’s what Brian said “Drugs and love are one big pillow and they can make you forget about so many things and they can make you forget about living and put you into a somnambulist state, like sleep walking.”

Its lyrics gave Placebo the phrase “a place for us to dream”, which they’d later title their 2016 retrospective compilation.

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More about: Placebo