Placebo – Sleeping With Ghosts
(Astralwerks 2003)
Thanks to a botched football catch on Christmas, I've been laid up in a cast with some broken fingers. You think fingers would be pretty easy to fix and heal. Wrong. I had to get surgery and now there's pins sticking out of the fuckers plus another four weeks in the cast. Bummer. So much for shredding. I can’t even get that pumped about having a monster vicodin prescription… well… yeah I can.
So anyway, I figured I'd take advantage of my right to mope a little and talk about one of my favorite albums of a more melancholy disposition. Plus, it’s January and the holidays are over. This is the point where the year kind of drags and is therefore primed for a mite of introspection.
You may not be a Placebo fan. And if that’s the case – I sort of get it. Brian Molko definitely has what you would call a unique vocal style that annoys the ever lovin’ shit out of a lot of folks, kind of like the Pixies and a slew of other hipster and rock critic favorites annoy the shit out of me. That said, I implore you to give Placebo a second listen and check out ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’.
This album was given to me by a band mate while I was living in Los Angeles in 2004 and was the first time I listened to a Placebo album cover to cover. I was quickly taken by how much ass it kicked and how great it sounded. Few bands really “get” what it is to use the studio in their favor, and Placebo nailed it with clever sampling/editing and a wide variety of tones. It’s not just an album that works cover to cover (because it wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t) – it’s an album that works cover to cover blaring through headphones while wrapped tightly in a blanket watching a rainstorm on a Tuesday afternoon. By the time you are two minutes into ‘English Summer Rain’, with its ethereal guitar held solid by aggressive drums, you will be in a different head space altogether.
If I were a better writer, I would have been subtly relating a million failed relationships to ‘Sleeping With Ghosts’ throughout this article as tracks like ‘The Bitter End’, ‘Special Needs’ and the title track all invoke memories we all have of times where shit just didn’t work out. When I first pulled this album for the column I was hesitant and worried that maybe I liked the album so much because it reminded me of a certain space and time in my life, so I carefully listened to it a few more times. The verdict? ‘Sleepin With Ghosts’ is about as well-made an album as you can get, and it will tell you stories you already know, provoking a sad smile or a tear.
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