Standout Songs:
Genre:
Label:
Year:
Date Reviewed:
It's a natural desire for artists to return, for one reason or another, to their formative works. Often, it's the advancements in mixing techniques and mastering standards that call for rescuing a classic work from potentially sounding dated. Yet, unless you are hyper-aware of subtle shifts in dynamic range or minute EQ adjustments, the average listener rarely hears a profound difference in reissues of even their most intimately familiar records. At the end of the day, audio professionals are still working within the rigid architecture of the original recording sessions, and you can only do so much with a captured sound. Consequently, these reissues rarely feel like a genuinely new experience.
Of course, if your old recordings aren't feeling quite up to snuff, you could always re-record them from scratch. Whether driven by a desire to fix a low-budget, amateurish debut or simply to regain ownership of the masters, this path carries its own set of risks. The desire to out do yourself with larger budgets and new tools can cause productions to lose sight of what's most important. Efforts to deliver a maximal, high-impact recording can wind up having the opposite effect on the finished product resulting in songs that lack the emotional character that originally inspired it. Unless handled with extreme care, fans who have spent decades developing a deep emotional attachment to the original recordings will almost always maintain their nostalgic preferences even if the new version sounds objectively better.
This brings us to British alternative rock band Placebo, who are currently celebrating the massive 30-year milestone of their self-titled debut album. Instead of taking the easy way out with a standard box-set remaster loaded with unreleased fluff, or blindly leaping into a total re-recording, Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal chose a remarkably ambitious middle path. Armed with three decades of studio wisdom and countless live iterations of these tracks, they didn't want to just re-gift an old relic. They wanted to document how these songs have actively evolved, which meant new instrumentation absolutely had to be laid down.
Crucially, however, the duo deeply honored and respected their humble beginnings, as well as the thirty years of emotional real estate these songs occupy in the hearts of their lifelong fans. Their solution was ingenious: they didn't start from scratch. Instead, they dug up the original master tapes and meticulously mapped out exactly what modern elements they could graft onto the existing foundation to make the record an accurate reflection of who Placebo is today. The result, RE:CREATED, is a fascinating hybrid of a remix and a re-record; an unprecedented approach that successfully breathes entirely new, meaningful life into the tracklist while safely preserving its raw, emotional aesthetic.
The first thing to commend on RE:CREATED is just how admirably the band balances both approaches. It is obvious that considerable thought went into assessing what each individual song required, and what the most effective strategy would be to achieve it. Before anything new was added, absolute priority was given to unearthing elements in the source material. This is evidenced by the number of times I thought I had stumbled onto a completely new detail, only to compare it to the original and discover that it had been there all along; albeit buried slightly. The sharp chorus guitar now carries over onto the final hazy moments of Come Home creating a comparatively more tumultuous outro. Counter-melodies on the instrumental outro of Teenage Angst are now given equal billing with the main chord progression creating a richer blend of guitars that feel more climactic. The harmonized backup vocals on the bridge of 36 Degrees struck me hard upon first spin given how tightly fused they sounded together, almost like a synthetic vocoder. I had never felt that sensation listening to the original, but the stems reveal those vocals were always there; they just previously lacked this level of stereo width and sonic glue. The last example I'll share are the spoken word sections of Lady of the Flowers. The stark change from lo-fi answering machine to high-definition spectral presence made me believe that Molko had recut his vocals. Although, closer inspection reveals that they are in fact the original performances.
So, what is actually new on RE:CREATED? The beauty is that given how seamlessly the fresh overdubs have been integrated, they can be difficult to detect. My guess is that the majority of the overdubs consist of rhythm guitars, supplementary background vocals, and synthesizers; elements that are difficult to pick out of a lineup. However, if you were to take them out of the equation, the difference would be noticeable. All of these elements effectively simulate Placebo's more grand live shows supported by a five-to-six-person live band. When the modern inclusions do step to the forefront, the impact is transformative. Bionic, a track that once sounded cold and despondent, sounds oddly hopeful with the added two-note electric piano motif and grainy synths during one of its refrains. The climactic instrumental section that follows sounds massive; a widescreen sound that will permeate every alcove of a giant arena. Lady of the Flowers benefits from a similar lift, implementing a new, wailing synth pad during the final chorus to create an enveloping wall of sound that takes the song to new soaring heights. Meanwhile, Swallow becomes an entirely immersive, ambient experience. While I'm not sure if new guitars were recorded, aside from a subtle pedal tone added to the intro, the track is transformed by shimmering, modulated delays, vast reverbs, and streaming synthesizer artifacts. The result is a surreal fever dream that is far more intoxicating than the original.
Beyond the exciting new arrangements, the general remix offers massive quality-of-life improvements across the board. The drum production is the biggest improvement as kicks and snares now possess that modern punch you expect from a rock record. Yet they still retain the organic tone and human articulation required to sound real in context. This added muscle gives the heavy rock cuts like Nancy Boy and Bruised Pristine, two tracks that were already practically perfect, an even more formidable, driving force. Furthermore, listeners can now easily discern the precision in the double-stroke bass drum hits, like at the tail end of 36 Degrees for example. The band even showcases some playful, experimental engineering by accenting a flurry of ghost notes on the snare with a tweezed delay trail at the end of Hang On to Your IQ.
I also hear improvements in the vocal mixing thanks to some subtle EQ moves and post-processing. Molko's delivery possessed an aggressive nasally character that could easily rub listeners the wrong way. The new mix appears to tame those harsher frequencies without sacrificing the bite within his performance. Furthermore, the band embraces three-dimensional space by bathing the vocals in prominent delays and wet reverbs. Hang On to Your IQ features long, subtle vocal delays that perfectly match the aloof, 'out-to-lunch' qualities present in both the lyrics and arrangement, while the soaked vocal chains on Lady of the Flowers make the track sound infinitely more ghostly. Despite their original dryness, I enjoyed these deeper cuts, but these more spacious takes bring a dynamic depth to the record that now makes them essential tracks within Placebo's catalogue.
The only drawbacks I can see are nitpicky ones. My least favourite track historically, I Know, unfortunately remains at the bottom for me as this new version fails to feel re-energized. Especially with its new guitar solo that ultimately feels rather bland and uninteresting. Additionally, the standard edition of the reissue chooses to officially canonize two bonus cuts into the main tracklist: the previously hidden instrumental H.K. Farewell and the b-side Drowning By Numbers. From a pure songwriting standpoint, these two tracks simply don't hold a candle to the album's core material.
Whether it comes in the form of a drastic remix or a totally new production, modern reissues of classic albums rarely have the power to replace the originals. They typically exist as fascinating alternatives; depending on your mood on any given day, you might choose to spin one or the other. With RE:CREATED, however, Placebo has delivered one of those rare updates that, in my opinion, will become the definitive version. Throughout this incredibly delicate process, not a single thread of the album's foundation was tarnished, and the overdubs only serve to enhance the experience. This hybrid methodology should set a standard for bands looking to update their formative works. I hope that Molko and Olsdal feel the urge to repeat this exact magic in two years' time, when Without You I'm Nothing marks its own thirty-year milestone.