Placebo: Black Market Music [ELEVATOR]

Why you'll love it

This remastered reissue comes in a gatefold jacket with a printed lyrics and credits inner sleeve. Black Market Music reached No. 6 in the UK and produced four singles.

This edition

• Remastered
• Gatefold jacket
• Printed inner sleeve with lyrics
• Pressed in the EU

About the album

Brian Molko later said Placebo walked into the studio for this one feeling like cowboys of rock, fresh off a huge tour and full of swagger. They took nine months over it, from late 1999 to mid-2000, working across Olympic, Townhouse and Moody Studios in London and co-producing with Paul Corkett. Molko also said it was where they started mixing genres in earnest.

"Taste In Men" opens on a slinky, menacing groove and was the first single, followed by "Slave To The Wage," which samples Pavement's Texas Never Whispers, then "Special K" and "Black-Eyed." Justin Warfield drops in a rap on "Spite & Malice," Rob Ellis arranged the strings, and "Commercial For Levi" is named for sound technician Levi Tecofski, who once pulled Molko back from the path of an oncoming car. The album is dedicated to the memory of publicist Scott Piering. Stefan Olsdal and Steve Hewitt round out the trio.

AllMusic heard Molko's androgynous wail at its moodiest, and PopMatters called it highly listenable dark guitar rock. The music boxes on the record came from Keith Harding's World of Mechanical Music, surely the most charming credit ever printed on a Placebo sleeve.

Also at Kops: more Placebo on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Elevator Music (cat# 6711044), a reissue of the 2000 album.