Placebo – ’20th Century Boy’

Guest post by Hugh Robertson

First things first, Velvet Goldmine is a film. A strange, ramshackle, bizarro fantasy of a film ostensibly about glam rock, but focussing more broadly on the sexual politics of Britain in the early 70s, and particularly David Bowie’s place therein. And it is written and directed by Todd Haynes (he of the similarly strange-but-brilliant Dylan film I’m Not There ), so that should be enough for you right there. What makes it even more interesting is that David Bowie refused to allow his music to be used in the film after he saw an early cut. And it’s not surprising, really. Haynes paints him as a vain, selfish, unstable drug addict who managed to destroy live and (nearly) his career by being an awful human being. All of which is mostly true, of course, but no one likes it when that sort of thing is said to your face.

But while I could rave on about the film, or catalogue the discrepancies between IRL Bowie and Iggy Pop and their Haynesian counterparts Brian Slade and Curt Wild and speculate as to the significance of same, or praise Johnathan Rhys Meyers (Slade), Ewan McGregor (Wild) and Christian Bale for their performances, I want to cast a spotlight on the soundtrack.

The whole thing is amazing, really, and centred on two supergroups performing covers of glam songs, or at least songs from that era. The Venus In Furs are all English musicians, including Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood, Bernard Butler from Suede and Andy Mackay from Roxy Music, while the Wylde Ratttz count The Stooges’ Ron Asheton, Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore and Steve Shelley, Minutemen’s Mike Watt and Mark Arm of Mudhoney among their number. It is worth the price of admission just to hear Thom Yorke channel Bryan Ferry on ’2HB’ – I’ve listened to that song thirty times, and I still can’t pick that it’s Yorke, not Ferry. It’ll give you goosebumps.

But what this movie also has is Placebo covering T. Rex’s classic “20th Century Boy”, and it is an amazing performance of a fantastic song. They add a little more grunt to the guitars, a little more ambiguous sexuality to the performance, and a whole lot more ‘fabulous’ than Bolan would have been able to get away with in 1973. And while you are listening, bear in mind that the song is just the same verse and chorus sung over and over again. That all that attitude, and danger, and sex, and menace is created entirely by the performer, and driven entirely by that riff.

And then you realise that, despite the Top 40 bombarding us with faux porn videos in a desperate bid to make us pay attention to the songs, it is never the overtly sexual that is actually sexy. It’s the attitude, the sneer, the strut or the swagger. It’s the twinkle in the eye, the laugh, or the smile. It’s what is hidden but suggested, rather than what is presented to us on a plate.

And despite the fact that we are all bombarded with sexual images every day, we in the 21st century are more detached from our sexual selves than ever before. More and more of us retreat to the safety of our own bedrooms, and the non-judgemental embrace of an unreal digital playground. And so as Australia (and Sydney in particular) prepares for some of its coldest weather in a long while, let’s try to get out there and embrace our sensual selves. Talk to that girl at work whose eyes catch the light, whose laugh warms the cockles of your heart. Introduce yourself to that boy on the bus who smells like home, or that guy you know from uni who walks around like he thinks he is Jagger.

Put yourself on the line, my friends, and celebrate sexiness that is more than skin deep. Bolan, Bowie and Iggy would hate to think we were all too lazy that we couldn’t fantasise about what can’t be seen.

Placebo – ’20th Century Boy’

More Placebos here.