Placebo: Black Market Music : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

In its 1997 heyday, when brit-pop success meant being loutish, laddish and rooted in the Sixties, the London-based trio Placebo wore dresses onstage, spouted end-of-time rock manifestoes and played a crashing, melodic glam rock over which Brian Molko whined in his insinuating nasal tones about sex, sexuality, sexiness and drugs. After two albums of glittery, witty filth, Placebo are undergoing an unfortunate growth spurt. Despite recognizably debauched, sophisticated songs like "Taste in Men," "Blue American" and "Special K," Black Market Music loses its sparkle and its melodic sense whenever it grows a conscience. "Slave to the Wage" cites "Maggie's Farm"; "Spite and Malice" contains an ill-advised dabble in hip-hop; and the introspection - so lacerating and ambivalent when the product of a hangover - goes limp here ("Black-Eyed"). But even if only half of this record pleases the cultists, it's still Placebo all over - clever, sexy, arch, propulsive and resolutely unfashionable. (RS 870 - June 7, 2001)

ARION BERGER