Placebo to roar into Wednesday. In concert from Bahnhof Lagendreher in Bochum Germany on March 15, 2001 and broadcast live by Radio Eins.
Placebo’s third album, Black Market Music, released in October 2000, and produced by Paul Corkett, further experimented with genres outside of regular rock sound. Placebo collaborated with Justin Warfield on “Spite & Malice” and sampled Pavement’s “Texas Never Whispers” on “Slave to the Wage”. A re-sequenced version released in the US featured a slightly different track listing, adding the aforementioned Bowie version of “Without You I’m Nothing” and the band’s cover of Depeche Mode’s “I Feel You”.
The album created additional UK top 20 hits in “Taste in Men” and “Slave to the Wage”, which reached number 16 and 19 in the UK Singles Chart, respectively.
In a 2001 interview, vocalist Brian Molko declared:
“I think it’s the album we always wanted to make. I think without exaggerating even the tiniest bit, we love it and we’ve never been so happy with an album. Our debut was fast and rough, punk pop, Without You I’m Nothing showed our melancholy, depressed side and Black Market shows a perfect combination of both sides”.
The singer would later become more reserved towards Black Market Music, describing it in 2016 as “real somber”, and expressing the regret of not having been involved enough during the production phase.
Placebo encountered resistance from the British music industry upon release of the single “Special K” due to its reference of a ketamine high as a simile for love. Due to this metaphor, the song was censored in the UK. In spite of the controversy, Black Market Music reached number 1 in France and number 6 in the UK.
Lyrically, Placebo’s music contains many references to drugs and sexuality. Molko has been open about his use of recreational drugs: in a 1997 interview with Kerrang! magazine he admitted that heroin was “probably the only drug on this planet I haven’t tried”. However, he later admitted to using heroin as well. Pharmaceutical drugs are also referenced, as evidenced by the band’s name as well as the album Meds and its title track. Molko admitted in 2003 that many of his initial excesses were due to his mental issues; he was officially diagnosed with major depressive disorder in his late twenties. The singer claimed in 2016 that he gave up drugs completely after the recording and release of Meds in 2006.
Crank it up and get ready for today.
