92: Placebo - Meds

Next up, a song which flew under the radar in Britain, but received huge amounts of radio airplay in the States in late 2006. 'Meds' was the title track and third single from Placebo's fifth studio album, and featured guest vocals from Alison Mosshart of The Kills (and now also Jack White's sidekick in The Dead Weather).

It's a typically frenetic Brian Molko performance, the urgent strumming of the intro building up into the main riff, accompanied by a frenzied drum beat as Molko sings of the descent into madness on the comedown from a drugs high. Mosshart's soothing vocals on the chorus, the ever-concerned partner asking "baby, did you forget to take your meds?" contrast with Molko's increasingly distressed tone of voice, as the song crescendos, and then collapses back to that original strummed rhythm.

The video (below) is weird, but then why expect anything else from Placebo? It's an unusual song in that I can't really think of another song from the decade that sounds even vaguely similar. But it really struck a chord (pardon the pun) from the first moment that I put the CD in my player. It's dark, moody, agitated... put simply, it's Placebo doing what Placebo do best.