This is the way things should be done. Record a brilliant debut album, and then follow it up an even better one with actual radio breakthrough singles. Viva!
So I'm into the pop dream, who isn't? And the great thing about Placebo is that they proceeded to give their own particular take on it with energy to boot. This is why the singles alone are particularly wonderful and I could praise this collective bunch of straights/gays/bis to death and do. "Pure Morning" may have some of the worst rhymes in the universe, but that never stopped Depeche Mode, and as for sounding like Rush, the word 'yawn' comes to mind. Heard it, been there, don't care. "You Don't Care About Us," meanwhile, is the Cure/New Order/Wedding Present rushed mid-eighties guitar-pop anthem of my dreams, but the great thing is how Brian Molko's guitar just explodes and sprawls over the whole damn thing while he's coming up with lines like "Think I'll leave it all behind, save this bleeding heart of mine." And "Every You Every Me" has a perfect brittle prettiness with an aggro lyrical kick, and so forth.
But the thing is that it's the rest of the album that makes me happy, merry, utterly enthralled by these ultradrama queens, why I worship Molko freely and happily and don't care what you think. His quaver, his one-off put-downs, his ache -- that's what I hear in his songs, a quavering emotionalism which renders me incapable of anything other than simple worship. I hear something like "Allergic (To Thoughts of Mother Earth)," the Sonic Youthisms in the guitar turned into attractive superstructures rather than pointless cul de sacs, and when he goes, "Don't let me down!" everything gets just gushy enough without once being mush. Or perhaps there's the way the title track takes one of the oldest damn lyrical cliches in the universe -- hell, a cliché used to describe other cliches -- and makes it perfect theatrical sweeping greatness.
But it's the quiet ones that win it out in the end here above all else. The way "The Crawl" unfurls just like the lyrics say, softly stoned out but on a very bad trip, all the instruments sounding a little bit off except for the slight shuffle of the drums, maybe. Or there's the waft of "Summer's Gone," like a reel around a fountain but somewhere in a hazed, lost area you can't quite go back to. "Burger Queen," perhaps? More off rhymes, perhaps, but gentle, almost not there, a picture of lost regret.
Or I'll just refer you to "My Sweet Prince," and it's all over. The spotlight shines brightly, the cigarette smoke curls up, the audience is silent, Molko's voice cracks over the piano and Edith Piaf was never quite so good. I can't say no. I would never want to.