| BLACK MARKET MUSIC : PLACEBO 2000 |
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| Hello Kitty ponders on whether to take Brian's advice on what to wear for tomorrow night's fancy dress party :) |
| I've been waiting for this album all year. Having already heard the singles 'Taste In Men' and 'Slave To The Wage', I'm hoping to hear something like NIN and Marilyn Manson having a war of words during the middle of Placebo's last album, 'Without You I'm Nothing'. And it kinda does sound like the above description. It may not be 'Placebo part 2' (as in, a follow-up to their self titled debut rather than 'WYIN') but the ferocious guitars are stilll there. So's the emotion. Except now, the teenage angst is gone and instead, have been replaced by political angst, and it still has that dark 'if you don't love me, then f*ck you' feel. I guess hanging out with Maz Manson led to the writing of 'Blue American': "three and a half minutes of pure self-disgust" says frontman Brian Molko, though he insists Maz was only a drinking partner. Molko does, however, admit that 'Wish' by NIN was an influence on the new Placebo record. The lyrics aren't directly from Brian's diary anymore, unlike the previous two albums, but they still seem pretty personal and truthful, and in some songs, sympathetic. It sounds strange, but even though 'Black Market Music' is a dark sounding album laced with themes of death and obsessions, there's still a positive streak of light shining over all twelve 'industrial' tracks. The lyrics are basically less paranoid yet still open and the rhyming is less predicatable. It sounds as if Bri's been raiding the vocab bank once again. My fave tracks off this turning-point of an album are 'Special K' (infectious chorus and NOTHING to do with the cereal), 'Spite and Malice' (the 'Bo go hip-hop), 'Blue American' ("I'm the anti-Eminem!" cries Molko) and 'Peeping Tom (like 'The Crawl' though more fragile and features ickle Molks on piano). According to Brian, this album is so-called because "it's something that's under the counter;something you can't have. But at the same time, it's something that you must have. Like forbiden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge." Riiiight... 'Placebo'. I'm not talking about the fake drug. I'm talking about the word. From Latin, meaning 'I will please'. And do they? Is Molko's 'bald patch' due to dye damage? Is Stefan so incredibly tall that it should be deemed illegal? Should Steve have kept his perm? Yes, yes and yes!!! |
| November 2000 |