Black Market Music

by

Placebo

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Placebo's Black Market Music is an album that you can listen to from start to finish and never have to skip a song. The flow of the album always keeps the listener interested, each song having its own unique message and sound. If you are a fan of unique distortion, this is an album for you.

Brian Molko's voice is unlike anyone I've heard before. He entrances his audience with his jaded lyrics and melodic voice. His songs are about drugs, depression, and distorted love. The song "Commercial for Levi" is my personal favorite on the album, it is a excellent demonstration of Molko's soothing voice and eccentric lyrics: "You're the one who's always choking Trojan, you're the one who's always bruised and broken, drunk on immorality, valium and cherry wine, coke and ecstasy, you're gonna blow your mind."

"Spite & Malice" is a rap/rock song, Placebo brings in Justin Warfield a rapper from One Inch Punch to experiment with different sounds. "Spite & Malice" is a song which uses a card game as a metaphor for life. "You look well suited like you came to win. Lust, spite and malice, your degrees of sin."

"I was never faithful and I was never one to trust. Borderlining schizo and guaranteed to cause a fuss." This line from "Black-eyed" is my favorite Placebo lyric. Molko shows his peculiar personality in this song. In the song "Blue American," you hear the dark side of Molko's voice. A slightly annoying, yet intense song, "Haemoglobin" is an important addition to the album. "Special K" is a fusion of sex and drugs, the distortion in this song is brilliant. The album opens with "Taste in Men," where Molko serenades to a lost love: "Come back to me a while, change your taste in men." The guitar riffs on "Days Before You Came" are awesome.

Overall, Black Market Music is Placebo at their best and I recommend this album to anyone who loves a mixture of grunge and emo rock.

On the back of two outstanding albums, Placebo have released a moody attempt at being alternative. Opener Taste in Men is an original electronica composition that distances itself from the trademark Placebo sound. A nu-brand of metal is introduced with Spite and Malice which features rapper 'Warfield' who stereotypically warrants the explicit lyrics notice and fails to impress. The remainder of the album returns to the traditonal Placebo formula of soaring/descending guitars as Molko's unmistakeable voice bleeds through the distorted guitars.

'Slave to the wage', 'Special K' and 'Days before you came' highlight the brilliance that we have associated with the negatively love-lawn band but also how little they have progressed from 1998's epic 'Without you i'm nothing', the same hooks are here but they are just that, the same.