Albums

Placebo - Once More With Feeling

Tim Miller 04/12/2004

Rating: 3/5

For a hardcore Placebo fan (presuming you own their four LPs) there's very little here worth forking out £13 for - new song I Do is a questionable effort, but recent single Twenty Years highlights Placebo's passionate and endearing side which has blossomed over these last eight years.

With the singles lifted off each album, it is the second and third albums Without You, I'm Nothing and Black Market Music which largely provide the best of the songs on this CD. For the borderline fan, or interested passer-by, this CD is a perfect tracing of the Placebo story.

Every hit you could want is here, and each piece of brilliance Placebo have conjured up are displayed in all their glory. Frustratingly though, a subdued recording of Nancy Boy is all it offers by way of accounting for, perhaps, Placebo's best moment.

Even Placebo's biggest fans will find it difficult to claim that something vital has been overlooked on this compilation; it has omitted nothing of worth to Placebo's 10 year history. Indeed, should you not own any of Placebo's material to date, it's arguable whether you will need anything more than this new CD to get, pretty much, the complete picture. Maybe also picking up Without You I'm Nothing for a fiver somewhere, sometime, would help in the long run.

It's difficult to say 'without this, you're nothing' in terms of knowing Placebo. Only for the (very) uninitiated will this prove to be necessary purchase. A non-essential compilation album, then? Quelle surprise.