Placebo: Without You I'm Nothing : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Placebo are the latest-and toughest-in the recent line of Englishpretty-boy guitar-glam bands (Suede, Supergrass, Mansun, Rialto, Elcka). Inthe great tradition of T. Rex-whose "20th Century Boy" they actuallyimproved for the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack-Placebo's hooks are no lessmuscular for their androgyny. The yummy radio single "Pure Morning" has theButthole Surfers' "Pepper" in its Middle Eastern melody and Rush's "TomSawyer" in its drum boom and nasal tone; Brian Molko quacks out wacky wordsabout how friends with weed and undressed breasts are best. Tracks like "EveryYou Every Me" and "Scared of Girls" gallop with exhilaration; "The Crawl" and"My Sweet Prince" prance into preening spaces of piano gloom. The disc windsdown to the triumphantly downtrodden "Burger Queen" (which swipes its sad tunefrom Altered Images' 1981 New Wave classic, "I Could Be Happy"). Whiningvaguely about girls who like boys who like boys, Molko's hissy-fit voicecracks toward transcendence whenever he hitches its pitch up another fruitynotch. (RS 805)

CHUCK EDDY