Sleeping with Ghosts

Sleeping with Ghosts
Studio album by Placebo
Released 24 March 2003
Recorded Late 2002 – early 2003
Studio The Town House and Sarm West in London, England
Genre Alternative rock
Length 46:32
Label
Producer Jim Abbiss
Placebo chronology
Black Market Music
(2000)Black Market Music2000		 Sleeping with Ghosts
(2003)		 Covers
(2003)Covers2003
Singles from Sleeping with Ghosts
  1. "The Bitter End"
    Released: 10 March 2003
  2. "This Picture"
    Released: 16 June 2003
  3. "Special Needs"
    Released: 15 September 2003
  4. "English Summer Rain"
    Released: 24 February 2004

Sleeping with Ghosts is the fourth studio album by British alternative rock band Placebo. It was recorded from late 2002 to early 2003 and released on 1 April 2003 by record labels Virgin and Hut.

Sleeping with Ghosts reached number 11 in the UK Albums Chart, and received a generally favourable reaction from music critics.

Content

Frontman Brian Molko, who is known to be a fan of the band Sonic Youth,[1] references lyrics from their album Sister on "Plasticine" ("Beauty lies inside the eye of another youthful dream" directly references "Beauty lies in the eyes of another's dream" from Sonic Youth's "Beauty Lies in the Eye").

The album has several songs based on a theme of relationships, such as relationships that end badly ("The Bitter End"), power struggles in relationships ("Special Needs") or the idea that some are meant to be eternal soulmates (the title track). Brian Molko told Kerrang! magazine: "I'm looking back to what's happened in my past emotional decade, trying to understand it. Trying to exorcise the ghosts and the demons of relationships past. It's the old cliché of it being therapeutic but it does work for me in that way."[2]

Another interview has Molko explaining:

The album title's about carrying the ghosts of your relationships with you, to the point where sometimes a smell or a situation or an item of clothing they bought brings a person back. For me it's about the relationship that you have with your memories. They inhabit your dreams sometimes. There can be a lot in the future that's gonna remind you of the ghost of relationships past. So I see the album as a collection of short stories about a handful of relationships. Most of them mine. In a way writing the songs helps me to get a lot of the nasty feelings off my chest and put them in a box, and therefore have a bit more of an objective discourse with those emotions because you've done something positive with them, you've rid yourself of them.[3]

Release

Sleeping with Ghosts was released on 1 April 2003. The CD came with the Copy Control protection system in some regions. It reached number 11 in the UK Albums Chart.[4]

A Special Edition version of the album was released on 22 September 2003 worldwide, featuring a diverse selection of cover versions that the band had recorded in previous years. This was re-released as a download-only album in 2007 under the name Covers. This is their last album released under Hut.

Reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic64/100[5]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[6]
The A.V. Clubfavourable[7]
Blender[8]
Filter85%[9]
Mojo[10]
Pitchfork6.4/10[11]
PopMattersmixed[12]
Q[13]
Rolling Stone[5]
Uncut4/10[14]

Sleeping with Ghosts received a moderately favourable reception from critics, and currently holds an approval rating of 64/100 on review aggregator website Metacritic.[5]

Michael Idov of Pitchfork wrote "No peaks, no gorges, just a steady oscillation between adequate and inspired. Sleeping with Ghosts is a remarkably level collection of guitar pop, simultaneously less glammy and less pungent than Placebo's earlier stuff."[11] Mojo wrote "There's some terrific and accessible stuff here [...] but the result is still an album that retreads old Placebo themes."[10] Q magazine called it "spikily brilliant".[13]

Track listing

All lyrics written by Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal & Steve Hewitt

No.TitleLength
1."Bulletproof Cupid"2:22
2."English Summer Rain"4:01
3."This Picture"3:34
4."Sleeping with Ghosts"4:38
5."The Bitter End"3:10
6."Something Rotten"5:28
7."Plasticine"3:26
8."Special Needs" (Ends at 4:22, a short instrumental hidden track follows)5:15
9."I'll Be Yours"3:32
10."Second Sight"2:49
11."Protect Me from What I Want"3:15
12."Centrefolds"5:02

Charts and certifications

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