Placebo
Self titled 1996 Ten years earlier and this would have been heavy metal, but Brit-pop and grunge had happened which sort of put this somewhere in the middle. Too heavy for pop but too well polished for anything that fell from the punk tree, Placebo entered the scene with their debut stonker, Placebo, self titled, and it makes a point straight away with Come Home. For anyone with an urge to move around and a sensation of underlying emotional bubbling, this album spoke volumes. And so the volume was turned up in homes around the world as teenagers (mainly) lapped up the sonic sounds of the 90s newest alternative act. Catchy riff based songs make up the entire album,and that's pretty much what we want, it's the lyrics that make it, man, apart from the nicely mixed and well written music that can't be overlooked. A guitar as a percussion instrument is something that came out of the hard rock scene, finger tapping from the virtuoso and plain old chord bashing to the bass drum from the grunge scene, Placebo make full use of this instantly rewarding playing technique with a half way house of melodic frenzy. The angst that pours from the verse lines of the song “Teenage Angst” hits home even now as a fully grown man, and I think to be honest I prefer the band now as back in the day I was into much heavier stuff. I opened my eyes to other music a few years later once I'd used up all my Maiden albums and discovered that other stuff like that wasn't nearly as good. The rock doesn't stop, and neither does the singing about random things that seem to make sense at the time. I enjoy the flow, the bass makes the music deeper and it's really good to hear a band that utilises the bass as a truly keystone instrument, following the guitar is okay and all but it doesn't inspire the next bass wizard. This album opened the doors to a fully fledged music career with fans the world over, I once saw the bassist walking through my local city centre and he had a crowd of young people (mainly women) following him a few paces behind. Must be nice eh? For a day or two. I imagine that you learn to switch off to it after so long. Totally check out Placebo, an answer to Slayer, nothing like them but strangely with as much energy.
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