May 24–31, 2001

music picks|rock/pop

Placebo

"Dazzled, doused in gin," goes Placebo’s self-descriptive "Taste in Men," the clicking, clattering Cure-like intro to Black Market Music (Virgin). Like most Placebo moments, there’s a woozy lasciviousness insinuated in each mouthful that suits Placebo’s swooping bass lines and buzzing arching melodies like matching socks and shirt collars. Cocky singer/guitarist/provocateur Brian Molko (in his piercing Feargal Sharkey-meets-Michael Stipe style) makes sure of that. His ribald ambiguous sexuality and his whip-smarts hold a dizzyingly preposterous lyrical quality, a pretentious slyness born of shyness that bursts out in too-clever claptraps like "Special K" (who uses the word "leitmotif" in song like Molko?) and the sin-centric "Spite & Malice." That he acknowledges such overt preciousness in "Blue American" means the raw-powered Placebo learned a bitchy trick or two having played a rival glam act in Velvet Goldmine (chosen by exec producer Stipe) alongside Iggy-manqué Ewan McGregor. The lesson: Be proud of all dramatic flourishes. Wear your nastiness proudly.

—A.D. Amorosi

Fri., May 25, 9 p.m. with Idlewild, at The TLA, 334 South St., 215-922-1011, www.electricfactory.com, $18, $20 day of show.