The word “regret” implies several things: pain over your past, contrition over your role in it, and the wish that you could go back and make sure it never happened. As a vocalist, as a melodist, as a lyricist, Brian Molko’s gift is conveying a kind of “regret,” or maybe a whole new word is needed, where you feel that pain and contrition but just can’t bring yourself to want to have done things any differently. In some ways that’s even sadder.
This video, which I hadn’t seen before now, takes a lovely, sexy idea and executes it beautifully, and Molko never looked better. Pretty perfect.
Thanks for posting this. Placebo is a personal time capsule for one of my life’s biggest regrets that I don’t wish had gone differently. It does deserve a new word. Regret just doesn’t encapsulate it. Reminiscence doesn’t have the right impact. Wistfulness is too saccharine. Perhaps it’s just too many overlapping gray areas to have a specific term.
Wow, thanks for sharing that. I was pretty chuffed at coming up with that explanation for what Placebo does, so to hear it so directly confirmed is pretty validating. And I hope you’re at a satisfied place in terms of whatever went down.