Art & Creativity Quote by Brian Molko

Molko frames Placebo less as a band than as a refuge: “music for outsiders, by outsiders” isn’t branding, it’s a social contract. The phrasing turns marginality into authorship. Outsiders aren’t just the audience; they’re the production team, the storytellers, the ones setting the tone. That’s a subtle power move in a music economy that usually treats alienation as a market segment to be harvested. Molko’s claiming it as a lived position and inviting listeners to stop auditioning for belonging.

The “conventions of outcasts” line is the real wink. A convention is organized, even nerdy; it suggests rituals, inside jokes, uniforms you choose rather than inherit. So the subtext is that exclusion can become community, with its own etiquette and joy. He’s also defusing the potential self-pity of outsider talk by tagging it with “which is cool” - a shrug that signals confidence, not trauma porn. Coolness here isn’t about being untouchable; it’s about being seen without being corrected.

Context matters: Placebo rose in a late-90s British scene obsessed with laddish swagger and clean categories. Molko’s androgyny, frankness about desire, and the band’s glossy-gloom sound gave misfits a place to put their feelings that wasn’t either macho rock posturing or precious indie detachment. The quote reads like a mission statement for a live show: not escapism, but a temporary jurisdiction where the weirdness is the entry fee, not the penalty.