The new Placebo record, Black Market Music, isn't the record it's supposed to be. It was supposed to be smarter, more refined and British-sounding; instead, it's a big, overblown guitar-rock record circa 1995, U.S.A.--which isn't the worst thing in the world, though definitely played out and tedious to listen through at length. But that won't really matter much to fans, because Placebo still looks great, which, in the grand tradition of glam rock, has always been what's most relevant about this band. That and the fact that Placebo writes a great pop-rock hook.

"We don't really like gigs where you see a band just sort of come in wearing jeans and T-shirts and stand there looking at their feet and just play the guitar," bassist Stefan Olsdal tells me. "It's nothing calculated. When you're on the road for so long, you play the same songs in the same order every night. You just try to find other things to keep you interested, and that's when you become a thespian with showbiz. And there is a thespian in all of us."

There certainly is. Most specifically in frontman Brian Molko, whose glammy, androgynous presence is both a truly beautiful thing to behold in a live setting, and also a repellent for thugs and indie-rock aesthetes--those who shun excess and the pop-historical method of self-promotion through mascara and self-induced media hype. But then, Molko is a sexy boy--one who has spent so much of his life being mistaken for a girl (and being mistreated for it), that active self-promotion and vanity are probably entirely intuitive and natural reactions for him, especially in the face of fame and adoration.

What would have happened if Molko had been ugly? It's a hypothetical question, of course, because he's beautiful. "You know, we're not ugly people, and that definitely helps. It's sad, but true--but we live in a very superficial world. People take things at face value quite a lot, and the cult of celebrity is big. You know, you can't have... it can't be flat. Or you can't be ugly."