Placebo: twenty years of “Meds”

In March 2006 Placebo release “Meds”fifth studio album by the band led by Brian Molko. Reread today, many of the reviews from the time resonate an overall positive but not enthusiastic reception, at least in Italy: a good album, they said at the time, but perhaps not one of the most memorable of the group. Yet, twenty years later, the perception around “Meds” appears different. As time passed, the album was progressively re-evaluated, especially by fans, who transformed several songs into cornerstones of Placebo’s imagination. Since the title track, “Meds”built on dense guitars and compact production, you can sense the group’s intentions.

There is also something to embellish the song the voice of Alison Mosshart of The Killswhich reminds Molko in the chorus to “take his medicine,” transforming the piece into a disturbing and hypnotic dialogue. It’s an opening that immediately sets the tone of the album: tense, nocturnal, full of characters who seem to be moving on the brink of collapse. It is no coincidence that some of the songs most loved by the public come from here. “Infra-red” it is one of the classic examples of placeboian writing: powerful, enthralling, crossed by a threatening text that explodes in the chorus. In “Drag” the guitars take over everything else, accompanying words that tell of an unbalanced relationship, made of inferiority and frustration. But it is in the most emotional areas of the album that “Meds” finds some of its most intense pages. “Follow the Cops Back Home” is a dark, freak and excruciating balladcapable of tearing the heart apart with its painful crescendo. Together with “In Cold Light of Morning” represents the most reflective and fragile side of the album, the one in which Molko’s voice moves between confession and reckoning.

Elsewhere the band’s typical guitar strength returns. “Because I Want You” it is one of the most immediate moments, while “Song to Say Goodbye”, released as the second (hit) singleperfectly sums up the album’s formula: melancholic melodies, emotional tension and a tale of broken relationships. The famous video directed by Philippe André, with the young actor Field Cate in the role of a child forced to take care of a depressed father further amplifies the sense of incommunicability that runs through the song. The themes addressed by Molko are those that have always inhabited the world of Placebo: internal suffering, addiction, toxic relationships, identities in crisis. In “Meds” all this takes the form of a gallery of characters in free fall, trapped in an oppressive and confusing society. They don’t really look for an escape route: if anything they try to stay afloat without forgetting who they are.

“Broken Promise”, the duet with Michael Stipe of REM, remains perhaps one of the least convincing moments: the meeting between two such strong personalities ends up being less incisive than expected. Yet it is precisely in its imperfect balance that “Meds” has found a second life. Over the years, many of his songs have become central in the concerts and in the story of the band, firmly entering the hearts of the public. Listened to again today it seems like a work that was perhaps underestimated at the time of its release: a dark but very lucid record, in which the band intercepts the sense of bewilderment of an era and transforms it into some of the most recognizable songs of their career. Twenty years later, “Meds” remains there: an album that didn’t need to be defended, but only to be listened to again.