Placebo – For What It’s Worth (Youtube)

I’ll grant you, it’s not the best video in the world. And Brian has got rubbish hair. In fact, it might be up there with the art school pretension of Teenage Angst way back in 1996. However, it is a cracking tune.

However long Placebo stay around for, they’re always going to be on the periphery of the alternative music scene, which you sense is precisely where they’d like to be. A heady combination of mascara, angst and androgny has always served them well, which is why new album Battle for the Sun is going to be an interesting one.

For a start, it’s got instruments on it! Actual real instruments! Like trumpets, and saxophones! There’s an injection of funk into For What It’s Worth that caught me out when I first heard it, but if it doesn’t make you want to have a little dance you’re stronger than most.

It’ll be interesting to check out the rest of the album, but this is a terrific start to another Placebo return.