Sound Bites
By Daily Bruin Staff
May 22, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Placebo “Black Market Music” Virgin
Records
“Black Market Music” is an escape from everyday life
into a darker, weirder and more sexually ambiguous world.
It’s punctuated by driving guitars and the eerie, nasal voice
of singer Brian Molko. It’s a sound that changes the mood of
the room in which it’s played, pulling in the attention of
the listener with the first song. The album isn’t necessarily
depressing, but it takes a close look at a depressed and confused
world. Placebo offers a new sound to a stagnated music scene, by
creating songs that have absolutely no relationship to pop, for an
audience that is anything but swooning 14-year-old girls. Repeated
lines in the song “Spite and Malice,” capture the tone
of “Black Market Music.” Sex, drugs and dysfunction
constitute the major themes of this album. The music doesn’t
always mirror the general depravity of the lyrics however. A rather
sweet sounding chime is added to “Commercial for Levi”
as Molko sings, “Drunk on immorality/Valium and cherry
wine/Coke and ecstasy/You’re gonna blow your mind.”
“Days Before You Came” and “Special K”
follow in the same lyrical vein. Both are good songs that represent
Placebo’s harder edge. “Blue American” and
“Peeping Tom” provide a contrast as slower-paced,
quieter songs that emphasize keyboards over guitars.
“Narcoleptic,” too, shares these qualities, although it
sticks with the usual guitar, bass and drums lineup. These songs
aren’t really a “softer” side of Placebo. The
lyrics are just as disturbing as those found in the rest of the
album, but in a slightly different way. Constantly evading
categorization, the group tries out a variety of rhythms and styles
in its songs. These qualities, however, don’t mean the album
is without fault. Molko has a bad habit of finding a phrase he
likes and repeating it to the point of annoyance. This is taken to
its farthest extreme in “Slave to the Wage.” Molko
repeats, “It’s a maze for rats to try” four
times, and “It’s a race, a race for rats/A race for
rats to die” six times. By the time he finishes reiterating
the obvious cliché of working life being “a rat
race,” it is so overdone it becomes almost unbearable.
Fortunately, most of the other songs don’t succumb to this
weakness to such a large degree, and the power and originality of
Placebo’s music overtakes the repetition of its lyrics.
Mary Williams Rating: 8 Â MxPx
“The Renaissance EP” Fat Wreck Chords
MxPx seems well on its way into a renaissance, but its not quite
there yet. Its tenth album, “The Renaissance EP” marks
a fresh new start for the band. Following up the successful
“The Ever Passing Moment,” the Christian-themed
punk/pop band, MxPx, intends to go back to its roots with its
latest release. “The Renaissance EP” shows a continuity
of maturity in MxPx’s lyrical content, but it surely
can’t be claimed as an entirely new beginning. The album
continues to question life issues as many of the bands previous
albums have done. Any fan of MxPx should appreciate the 9-track EP,
as it retains the groups catchy power-chorded melodies. With a lead
guitar, a bass and a drummer, they keep the instrumentation simple,
and the tempo, like all of its other albums ““ fast as hell.
Characteristic of many of its older songs, the lyrical content is
contemplative and self-conscious. A prime example of this is
“The Struggle,” which revolves around faith in oneself
against outside influences. Vocalist, Mike Herrera, sings,
“We all understand the choice is in our hands.”
It’s not common to hear a lot of positive punk rock today,
but MxPx is able to tie these messages into its music. One
complaint about this type of message in punk rock is that it might
not fit quite right. It doesn’t fit the
“lifestyle” of typical listeners. The album, does,
however, have some party songs. “Yuri Wakes Up
Screaming” is a regular fun-loving nonsensical song. There
are a total of twenty-nine words in the song, and the title, is
repeated over and over again, taking up twenty of these said words.
Great song. The only problem with “The Renaissance EP”
is that, like many punk records, the songs start to sound the same
after a while. Perhaps it’s due to the same lead singer doing
every track, or it could be the similarity in every song with the
racing drum beats and electric guitar. Regardless, if fans listen
to each song, the subject matter usually differentiates the tracks.
Though more of a continuation of style than a full-blown rebirth,
“The Renaissance EP” is a solid MxPx album,
characteristic of everything it has established. Fans have reason
to be happy, and as this is just an EP, there should be more MxPx
to come.
Kenny Chang Rating: 7 Â DJ Smash
“Phonography” Blue Note
“Phonography” is what 2:30 a.m. sounds like. It
urges toward both slumber and moving in an incredibly crazed
erratic manner. While this may seem like a dangerous path for a
musician to tread, DJ Smash displays a surprising amount of
sensitive alacrity and flitters between these two feelings
remarkably well. Songs such as the second track, “A Brighter
Day,” float in a catatonic mellowed state while at the same
time careening through a lyrical dizziness provided by none other
than Mos Def. In fact, this could have been one of the strongest
tracks on the album had DJ Smash held off on his scratching binge
at the beginning of the song. Aside from these few annoying scratch
interludes placed throughout the album, “Phonography”
is an excellent example of where DJs belong in the music world. In
fact, what DJ Smash has attempted to do here is perhaps more
important than what actually confronts the ear. Basically,
“Phonography” is a collection of renditions of older
classic songs, ranging from Miles Davis’s “Voodoo
Reprise” to the Beatles’s “Hey Jude.”
However, to call the album a collection of cover songs is hardly
doing it justice. Most of the tracks have been stripped completely
of recognizable melodies and the only reminders of the original
songs are chord changes and lyrics ““ if the song even had
these to begin with. It’s interesting to hear how DJ Smash
has redone “Come Together” and changed a classic
pop-rock song into a beautiful jazz ballad sung by Cassandra Wilson
and Dianne Reeves. The same thing that makes this track so striking
also causes the demise of other tracks on
“Phonography.” The previously mentioned “Hey
Jude” seems to lack any direction whatsoever due to DJ
Smash’s quest to be different. While the quality of the songs
seems to waver between dull and inspiring, DJ Smash has proven the
relevance of the DJ in a genre that is full of arrogant
instrumental purists. In releasing “Phonography,” Blue
Note Records has made a bold move by pushing jazz into the new
millennium. With a lounge-like after party feel,
“Phonography” has traversed the boundaries of both jazz
and hip-hop, and is only a precursor of what is to come.
Antero Garcia Rating: 6 Â Depeche
Mode “Exciter” Mute Records
A little irony never hurt anybody. Then again, a bit too much
irony may prove to be fatal. Such are the circumstances on the
latest Depeche Mode album, “Exciter.” It’s not
that the album is necessarily bad. It’s that it’s
pretty much slaughtered by its own title. The album is full of
slightly above average tracks, but what is immediately apparent is
that none of these tracks are exciting whatsoever. It’s not a
surprise that the band has come to such a state of calm. Over
it’s 20-year career, the members of Depeche Mode have gone
from vibrant new wave giants to miniscule wannabes in the Nick Cave
world of depressing calmness. As mentioned earlier, the album is
pretty solid for what it is, but with its misleading title wafting
like a freshly backed pie in front of the noses of eager fans,
“Exciter” is nothing but disappointment. From its
opening track “Dream On,” fans are hit with two
immediate fists full of truth. The first realization is in the
mellow droning synthesizers that seem to lull the listener into a
death- like coma. The other realization is when Depeche Mode adds
its vocals, which seem to fall into the same slumber as the
background noise. This same morose feeling runs throughout the
entire album. The mellowness is only accompanied by minimalist
cymbal taps that seem to act as a “˜heart-monitor-ish’
reminder that the listener is still alive and hopefully awake. Had
the group actually chosen a song from the album as its name,
instead of pulling out a lie, it would most likely have chosen
track eight, “Comatose.” This is the proper description
of the album’s sound. While the disappointment surrounding
“Exciter” is great, it should be noted that after
several listens the album grows in appeal. However, most
people’s initial feelings toward it will be too disgusted to
get to the point of semi-rewarding listening. With such a dismal
release, the most redeeming quality of the album is the realization
that many groups put out utter crap (Smashing Pumpkins’s
“Adore” and U2’s “Pop”) only to
return to the music market several years later with a true classic.
This better be the case, because Depeche Mode definitely
hasn’t reached the expectations of its audience.
Antero Garcia Rating: 3
