YMMV / Placebo

• Anvilicious: The social media critique "Too Many Friends" is anything but even slightly subtle, with every verse explicitly mentioning computer and other device use as potential contributors to social isolation and skewed self-image.
• Awesome Music:
  • The title track from Without You I'm Nothing, "Blind" from Meds and "Exit Wounds" from Loud Like Love hit soaring heights of power.
  • "Every You, Every Me," "The Bitter End," "The Never-Ending Why" and "Brick Shithouse," among others, show how hard Placebo can rock when they put their minds to it.
• Broken Base: Their cover of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill" is either as good (if not better) than the original, or borderline sacrilege. These debates were renewed after Stranger Things famously gave the original a Colbert Bump.
• Ending Fatigue: The end of "Ask For Answers" is over a minute and a half of a repeated guitar riff, one that was nowhere to be found in the rest of the song. It's pleasant enough atmospherically if one's not in a hurry for the song to end, but one nonetheless has to wonder why that riff is there, because it's not like the song would be very short without it.
• Epic Riff: The riff from "Pure Morning" is one, loud, droning chord. The acoustic intro to "Every You, Every Me" is pretty damn memorable, too.
• Funny Moments: Brian Molko once told a story about how they opened up for Weezer in the 1990s while touring America, and got a bunch of coins thrown at them for their trouble. So they just gathered up the coins, and bought a round of drinks with them!
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Placebo is surprisingly popular in Greece.
• Growing the Beard: Their sophomore album, Without You I'm Nothing, is commonly considered where Placebo started coming into their own, with darker subject matter and a richer sound than the album before.
  Stefan Olsdal: The band had a chance to really delve into its identity and get focused on the music, the songwriting and what we wanted to convey to the world. We’d done one album so we knew how to work the studio. The coming together of all of these aspects made it more quintessentially ‘Placebo’ than the first one.
• LGBT Fanbase: Both Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal are openly LGBT (bisexual and gay, respectively), with the former well-known for his gender-bending and often androgynous presentation across his career, plus plenty of the band's material is unapologetic and direct in discussing and portraying sexuality in general, with a number of songs (notably "Nancy Boy", "Lady of the Flowers", "Burger Queen", and "Spite and Malice") either confirmed as specifically about LGBTQ+ themes or commonly inviting such interpretations. As such, it shouldn't be surprising for anyone to hear that they appeal to a good-sized LGBTQ+ following.
• Moment of Awesome: The climax of the music video for "Pure Morning" where Brian crosses his fingers, throws himself off a high rise building to the horror of the crowd... then touches down gently on the side of it and calmly walks down the wall towards the ground as everyone stares in awe. Spine-tingling.
• Narm:
  • "Too Many Friends" has even made a few diehard fans chuckle at its particularly on-the-nose lyrics.
  • The rapper(!) on "Spite & Malice". The verses are written and delivered fine, and it's not out of place on the general landscape of alternative rock at its time, but it is jarringly unexpected on a track by Placebo, who had never included rap verses in a song before and have not since.
• Narm Charm: "Too Many Friends" sees some derision for its cheesily-blunt social commentary, but it's got its appreciators, too; the song still has a great melody and instrumentation, and the lyrics do make some good observations about the hollow vapidity of social media where a person can have hundreds of "friends" they're never even going to actually meet in their lifetime.
• Older Than They Think: "Ashtray Heart" is more than just a Battle For The Sun track — it's actually the original name for the band.
• Refrain from Assuming: Most people think "Every You, Every Me" is called "Every Me and Every You", because that's how the chorus seems to go. If you read the back of the CD case, it is quite clearly called "Every You, Every Me" and if you listen to the chorus more carefully, you'll hear the end of the chorus goes "every me and every you, every me." A lot people think the same song is called "Sucker Love" after the first two words of each verse.
• Signature Song: "Pure Morning" and "Every You, Every Me" are likely their most popular tracks, while "Nancy Boy" was the first of their songs to blow up.
• Sweet Dreams Fuel:
  • "HK Farewell," the Hidden Track from the self-titled debut - it's so soothing, it's practically a lullaby. (Contrast with the nightmarish "Evil Dildo," the Hidden Track from Without You I'm Nothing.)
  • "The Innocence Of Sleep," a Without You I'm Nothing B-side. It's an instrumental, and could be considered a dabbling in Post-Rock if it wasn't so quiet.
• Tear Jerker:
  • During the band's 2016 tour, they dedicated a performance of the song "Without You, I'm Nothing", which has a duet version with David Bowie, to the late Bowie himself. Look it up if you like - Brian belting out the sad last verse of a song with that title surrounded by video clips of one of the band's recently-departed influences is... well, a bit of an "ouch".
  • "My Sweet Prince," written about the depths of heroin addiction. The composition is in a minor key and especially minimal by Placebo standards, and Brian sings it like he's begging for the sweet release of death.
    Me and you, baby, used to flush all the pain away
    So before I end my day, remember
    My sweet prince
    You are the one
  • "Peeping Tom", of all songs. Is it about an unapologetic serial stalker-voyeur? Yes. With its lonesome, drippingly-distorted instrumental and bleak lyrics, is it also a downright depressingly wretched study of its particular character? Also yes.
    I'm weightless
    I'm bare
    I'm faithless
    I'm scared
    I'm scared...
    I'm scared...
  • "Bosco", the closer from Loud Like Love, a mostly subdued piano- and string-driven song from an alcoholic man to his partner, pouring out his shame in a moment of reflection over the harm he knows the compulsive, dangerous, and toxic behavior his addiction has led to has caused them and recognizing all they've done to protect and be patient with him. It's easy for it to gut a listener who's been either person in such a relationship.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Brian Molko. Pictures like this◊ don't help.
• Win Back the Crowd: Partly owing to the Anvilicious nature of "Too Many Friends," the parent album, 2013's Loud Like Love, was largely seen as a disappointment, without much in the way of evolution to their sound, and (for the less kind) Brian Molko in a songwriting slump. The long break between albums must have did the band some good, because 2022's Never Let Me Go was glowingly reviewed, and considered their best work since the 2000s.