Placebo - Black Market Music

Released in October 2000, Black Market Music is the "hallucinatory revelation" that saw Placebo expanding their "cinematic landscape" into more experimental territory. Taking nine months to record—the longest the band had ever spent in the studio at that point—the album is a "forceful and dimensional" evolution. Brian Molko, Stefan Olsdal, and Steve Hewitt moved beyond the "shadow-drenched" melancholia of their previous work to incorporate "otherworldly" electronic textures, hip-hop influences, and "unflinchingly honest" political commentary.

The record was a major commercial success, peaking at #6 in the UK Albums Chart. It delivered some of the band's most "pulsating and urgent" anthems, including the industrial-tinged "Taste in Men" and the "swivel-eyed fury" of "Special K." This vinyl reissue brings the album’s "thick, layered production" to the turntable with "breathtaking clarity," preserving the "ten-ton groove" of the bass and the "hushed, searching" moments of Molko’s vocals. It remains a mandatory cornerstone for any "disciple of the dark-pop" revolution.