Once More With Feeling: Singles 1996-2004

Performer: Placebo
Artist: David Bowie
Engineer: Barny
Producer: Teo Miller; Phil Vinall; Placebo
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Placebo: Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal, Steve Hewitt. Additional personnel: David Bowie (vocals). This well-compiled retrospective covers the first eight years of the London-based rock trio's career. Placebo combines the sexy, androgynous attitude of glam with the grind of grunge, the razor-edge of punk, and a dash of blissful drone-noise a la Sonic Youth. Through its first four studio albums, Placebo blazed a trail with equal parts flash, guitar-muscle, and keen pop smarts, a mix that sent several of the band's singles up the UK charts. For these reasons, Placebo is especially well suited to a hits collection, and ONCE MORE WITH FEELING is, as a result, the group's best overall offering. Early hits ("Nancy Boy" and "Bruise Pristine") define the band's cross-gender themes and slick, churning sound, while the mid-tempo "Pure Morning" sports an expansive feel and an infectiously catchy melody. "Taste in Men" has a goth-industrial edge, "The Bitter End" recalls 1980s New Wave, and glam godfather David Bowie joins the group for a duet on "Without You I'm Nothing" (an association that has helped the band not a little). But while it's easy to play spot-the-influence with Placebo, the trio has enough panache and songcraft to pull it off effectively, a feat attested to on this impressive 19-song disc.

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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