English Dance Rock: Placebo's Sleeping with Ghosts

How many rock albums are confident enough to start off with an instrumental? I’m not talking about Electronica albums which may contain a lot of instrumentals. And I’m not talking about Progressive Rock which has a tendency towards instrumental songs as a way to tie together their concept. I’m talking about straight-up rock albums.

I can’t think of many opening up on side 1, track 1, with an instrumental. Bob Mould’s “Sundown” comes to mind, but I find it difficult to come up with many others.

Well, now you can add Placebo’s Sleeping with Ghosts to the list. This English Dance Rock album opens with a great instrumental track, “Bulletproof Cupid.” A perfect track 1 sets the tone for the entire album, much like the perfect first line of a novel draws the reader in immediately.

“Bulletproof Cupid” lays down an infectious groove that becomes the vamp beneath many of the album’s songs. Not as in the literal backing loop in each song, but the beat, the guitar and bass work, the drumming, and the programming all act like an overture to the album. Here are the pieces of the sound that will appear on Sleeping with Ghosts. Even while creating dance tracks and keyboard-centered sounds, the foundation comes back to track 1 where Placebo throws down some guitar licks and prepares you for a much stronger-edged dance rock than you might expect.

This is incredible effective, because when lead singer Brian Molko begins on track 2, “English Summer Rain,” his voice betrays no hint of the harder kick that Placebo is capable of. The vocals leave a strong impression of the Pet Shop Boys and New Order. Given that, Placebo is next to Electronic (Bernard Sumner’s side project with Johnny Marr), due to the similarity to New Order, but Placebo falls on the Jesus Jones side, the rockier side of the keyboard-friendly dance rock.

What this means for Placebo is that dance-type beats and programmed songs are heavily augmented by flashes of guitar, live drumming, and enough edge to the keyboards to bring out the strength, urgency, and edge easily lost in this sound style. Here it is worth mentioning that I think a lot of albums like Sleeping with Ghosts owe a lot to Nine Inch Nails and Trent Reznor, who with pretty hate machine, combined electronics and hard rock.

For Placebo, this combination emerges on tracks like “Plasticine,” blazing in like the core of a P.O.D. song but maintaining the much more serene English Dance Rock sound through the vocals. The contrast is what makes Placebo stand out from the others in this area of the Spectrum.

The opening lone guitar on “Special Needs” reminds me of something from Live. But then the vocals and piano come in separating us again from the Hard Rock sound. In fact, I think Placebo almost turns the idea of a programmed loop on its head. I would often expect to think of the electronic elements—keyboard, drum programming, samples—as being the vamp beneath the other instrumentation and vocals. Here, however, I think the Hard Rock elements are the vamp. On “Special Needs,” that lone guitar maintains the vamp even while all of the electronic elements are added in—and then stripped away at times. It is the Hard Rock foundation that moves this English Dance Rock forward.

Thanks to Katie and Astralwerks for providing the review copies. . .and some sampler CDs for an upcoming giveaway. Stay tuned!