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Without You I'm Nothing

by Placebo

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This U.K. three-piece's self-titled debut often got compared to Smashing Pumpkins and Rush--Smashing Pumpkins for its unashamed mid-'70s prog-rock allusions and Rush because of singer Brian Molko's unusually high-pitched, almost androgynous voice. In reality, Placebo were far more salacious, downright dirty, and culturally confusing than either. (The band is a mix of American, Swedish, and English, with some Lebanese and Luxembourgian thrown in.) For their second album, Placebo have looked to the late '70s for inspiration, to the sound of early New Order and the Banshees--with a dash of the '90s thrown in: "Brick Shithouse," for example, starts like the most balls-out Prodigy song. If their debut was the sound of a no-holds-barred sexual drug frenzy lasting way into the next day, then Without You I'm Nothing is the resultant rumpled, libidinous comedown. As such, it's much classier, cerebral and great to listen to when hung-over. "I'm unclean / A libertine / And every time you vent your spleen / I seem to lose my power of speech," Molko breathes on the awesomely overcharged title track. In a year when Marilyn Manson and Bauhaus continue to revitalize the goth movement across America, Placebo's moment may well have arrived. --Everett True