Without You I'm Nothing

Performer: Placebo
Producer: Steve Osborne; Phil Vinall
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: If you want an idea of where Britain's darlings Placebo are coming from, imagine Smashing Pumpkins taking on the poppier sections of the Spiritualized songbook. Even that doesn't quite capture the unique sound Placebo achieves on WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING, so here's another clue-the title is pretty self-explanatory. The character in these songs is pretty unimpressed with himself and his place in the world, and like Billy Corgan of the aforementioned Pumpkins, he isn't afraid to grouse about it in a high, keening tenor over aggressive guitar backing. Unlike the Pumpkins, Placebo are students of the art of pop songcraft, and many of the tunes here will stick with you even after just one listen.

Rolling Stone (2/4/99, p.61) - "Placebo are the latest--and toughest--in the recent line of English pretty-boy guitar-glam bands....In the great tradition of T. Rex..." Q (3/98, pp.110-111) - "...WITHOUT YOU I"M NOTHING is a generous and inclusive record....they've fashioned an album of such honesty and scope - proof that there is more to them than a set of passports, a racy reputation and a girl's haircut..." Kerrang (Magazine) (p.53) - "Probably the most out-and-out rock album Placebo ever made..."

The three founding members of Placebo hailed from Belgium, Sweden, and Switzerland, but their sound was British through and through, a mix of angst-ridden Cure-esque post-punk and glammy art rock a la Bowie. Amid the success of their early albums in the 1990s, they made no secret of their roots, crossing paths with Bowie more than once, covering T. Rex, and appearing in the glam-rock homage VELVET GOLDMINE. However, as album followed album in the '00s, like Bowie, the band expanded beyond its original universe, developing its own brand of darkly majestic, thoroughly neurotic pop.

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