Placebo returned this Friday, the 17th, with the band's first single after five years without new releases. In a mix of power and vulnerability, "Beautiful James" is now available on all streaming platforms.
Written before the start of the pandemic, when the band was ready to release their next album – according to Brian Molko , the project is already finished – “Beautiful James” aims to normalize the prominence of relationships that deviate from heteronormativity in music.
Openly bisexual, the vocalist doesn't intend to influence the public's interpretation ("Who is James to you? Is he a man?", he provoked in an interview with NME ), only to "irritate the squares and uptights" of the world in the face of increasingly polarized political and social times.
“It remains imperative to me that each listener discovers their own personal story within it – I really don’t want to tell you how to feel,” Molko explained about the song.
With a 25-year career, the band's last album is Loud Like Love (2013). After the release of this album, Placebo returned with some singles and the EP Without You I'm Nothing (2017), with remixes of the track recorded alongside David Bowie before the artist's death.
Regarding the new album, scheduled for 2022, there is still no official information, such as the name or tracklist, but the band assures that they have "new music on the way".
