Unlike their contemporaries in the mid-90s UK pop-rock void – bands whose critically-lauded albums promised much on paper but delivered only abject mediocrity – Placebo were able to construct a sustainable abstract facsimile of end-of-days glam rock, illuminated by singer Molko’s intriguing
lyrics and androgynous persona. Superficially shiny and sharded, Placebo’s music housed a sexually twisted heart of darkness absent from the falsely-elevated trash which desperate UK pop-kids were forced to cling to in the midnight of their aural desolation. In this world Placebo – supported by David Bowie, a fervent admirer who evidently saw Molko as a final valid iteration of the male/female pop star – were able to rise quickly to mass popularity, an ascendency which for once was clearly not entirely without merit.