The song was played throughout the Black Market Music and Sleeping With Ghosts tour, and was performed up until 2005. "Slave to the Wage" returned to the setlists on the band's summer 2012 tour. An acoustic version of the song is part of the 2015 MTV Unplugged performance.
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Left: Brian Molko. Right: Stefan Olsdal. The band'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".
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"Slave to the Wage" is a song by English alternative rock band Placebo. It was released as a single from their third studio album, 2000's Black Market Music. It reached number 19 in the UK Singles Chart. The song, inspired by the drudgery of having a "9 to 5" job in the modern world, is about not working oneself into an early grave.FITTER. HAPPIER.
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Black Market Music is the third studio album by English alternative rock band Placebo. The album took nine months to record, from late-1999 to mid-2000; the longest that the band has ever spent recording an album to date. It was released on 9 October 2000 by record label Hut. Four singles were released from the album: "Taste in Men", "Slave to the Wage", "Special K" and "Black- Eyed".
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He has also been playing a Charger bass, built by the luthiers TAO Guitars in Brussels. His amplification is a mixture of Ampeg (for basses) and Marshall (for guitars) amplifiers. He also played the xylophone in acoustic performances of some songs from Meds ("Pierrot The Clown", "Post Blue"). In Hotel Persona live shows he mostly uses a Fender Telecaster also used when performing "Scared of Girls", "Slave to the Wage" and "Evil Dildo".
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As well as the standard CD and 12" vinyl releases, the record was also available as a 12" picture disc in the UK. The image of the rooster on the cover was created by defacing the cover of the self-titled album by Ambergris. "Texas Never Whispers" was sampled by Placebo for their song "Slave to the Wage" from their 2000 album Black Market Music. "Frontwards" has been covered by both Cardiff-based indie- pop band Los Campesinos! and Hamilton Leithauser.
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"Kanga Roo" and "Holocaust" were both covered by This Mortal Coil on the band's debut LP, It'll End in Tears. The 1992 Rykodisc CD release of Third/Sister Lovers includes a "thank you" to This Mortal Coil in the liner notes in acknowledgment of this. In 1984, the Paisley Underground all-star group Rainy Day covered "Holocaust" on its eponymous album, featuring Kendra Smith of Dream Syndicate on lead vocals. "Holocaust" was also covered by Placebo on the band's single for Slave to the Wage in 2000 and can also be found on their compilation Covers.
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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, 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.
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Molko uses a variety of guitars. In the Sleeping With Ghosts era, he used Gibson SGs ("The Bitter End", "Every You Every Me", "Plasticine", "Black-Eyed", "Without You I'm Nothing", "Special K", "Bulletproof Cupid", "Soulmates/Sleeping With Ghosts", "Special Needs", "This Picture"), Fender Jaguars ("Allergic", "Nancy Boy", "Bionic", "Centrefolds"), a Fender Thinline Telecaster ("Taste in Men"), a Fender Jazzmaster ("Pure Morning"), and a Fender Bass VI ("Slave to the Wage"). For amplification he used a Marshall 6100LM. Through the Meds tour, he used Gretsch Duo Jets ("Infra-Red", "Because I Want You", "Song to Say Goodbye", "One of a Kind", "The Bitter End", "Running Up that Hill", "Special K"), Gibson SGs ("Special Needs", "Every You Every Me", "Black-Eyed", "Without You I'm Nothing"), a Fender Jaguar ("Drag", "Nancy Boy", "I Know"), a Fender Thinline Telecaster ("Twenty Years", "Taste in Men"), and a Gibson Chet Atkins SST ("Meds").
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