Placebo

In 1996, at the height of Britpop, this band was a disruptive force. Whilst elsewhere people were celebrating beer, nationhood and nostalgia, Brian Molko sang of androgyny, addiction and alienation. It was music like an open secret: vulnerable, provocative, radically honest. Songs like ‘Nancy Boy’ or ‘36 Degrees’ were not hits in the traditional sense, but statements. Edgy, uncomfortable, necessary.

With Placebo’s ‘RE:CREATED’, this debut album is not simply being reissued, but reinterpreted. It’s more of a director’s cut than a remaster. The band have dug out the old master tapes and added something that can’t be created in the studio: three decades of live experience. Because these songs have evolved on stage, night after night, city after city. They’ve grown, become rawer, and at times more delicate. Live has always been the place where Placebo came into their own.

Anyone who has ever experienced Molko’s voice cutting through a room knows that this is no mere exercise in nostalgia. It is more of a dialogue between the past and the present. The new versions still carry the nervous energy of the nineties, but also the power of a band that has learnt to trust itself. It’s not about improvement, they say, but about perfection.

Perhaps that is the very essence of this project: a pause, without standing still. A look back that does not romanticise the past, but rather brings into sharper focus what was already there back then. In a present where questions of identity, the body and belonging are once again being debated with renewed intensity, these old songs suddenly seem astonishingly relevant once more.

And then there’s the stage. The place where it all began and where it constantly reinvents itself. This autumn, Placebo are returning to exactly that place for a major tour of Germany, with songs from their first two albums, some of which haven’t been played live for over twenty years. An anniversary, yes. But above all: a promise.