One of my favorite musical artist and or bands is Marilyn Manson. Truly the music scene has become too high tech and too pop-punk-emo for my tastes overall with all of the Ipods and what-not. However, the same songs I loved when I was a younger man and teen are still great today and these following choices reflect my personal enjoyment and not just how I rate them in comparison to other works or other artists or how they stood in the grand scheme of things. Marilyn Manson seems washed out to many and they grew away from the shock-rock act of things, however, as I write this list I keep in mind that he still performs and makes music and could create something new and profound that I will have wished I had included. Quite frankly, depending on my mood, one could already swap tracks such as Tourniquet and Reflecting God, or perhaps even User Friendly and The Dope Show on to this list. As it is though, these following tracks, ranked from 10 to 1 are my current choices. Ladies and Gentlemen: the top ten songs of Marilyn Manson.
10. They Said That Hell’s Not Hot – This is the fourth track on Manson’s 2007 album: Eat Me, Drink Me. The majority of the songs were created during a time of exile and new romance in Marilyn Manson’s life, as well as divorce from his then wife Dita Von Tease. The theme overall for the music was chosen to reflect Manson’s more human side, while at the same time tapping into Lewis Carroll inspired thoughts and love from the viewpoint of a vampire: stab me in the heart, yet still I carry on. This particular song has a bridge in which I could pick up on the hurt and actually feel it from the vocal. The theme is an easy one for me to identify with, as you will see I find it easy to identify with the lyrics of Marilyn Manson, and my favorite lines from the song are:
“I gave my soul to someone else
She must have known that
It was already sold.
It was never about her,
It was about the hurt.”
Myself, being a man with a name tattooed on his chest and over his heart, perhaps you can understand.
9. Antichrist Superstar – Not only was this the title for Marilyn Manson’s true second album, after hitting it big with an album of remixes and cover songs, but it was also a song with a message; an explanation. Here was Marilyn Manson showing his true face, almost as he tried to do in The Dope Hat song, not letting America mistaken him for a cover song artist and showing how one should and could let a devil into their home as inspiration. All of the rumors surrounding Marilyn Manson being a devil worshipper and etc were somewhat killed by a lyric in his song Disposable Teens in which he says “Never really hated the one true God, but the God of the people I hated.” Antichrist Superstar relishes in the persona of evil cast upon him, embraces it, and questions whether reality is what you make it to be. Also it is a song showing strength with lines such as ” I am the Hydra” reflecting on if you cut the head off it only grows back stronger. Critics of Marilyn Manson only found that by making up false stories and trying to destroy him they were only giving him free publicity and feeding the monster, so to speak. We can all relate to people trying to bring us down with rumor and etc, and hopefully we can all relate to just coming back stronger. I prefer the live recording of this song as opposed to the studio album version.
8. Coma Black – This is more or less a guilty pleasure for depression. This song was on Marilyn Manson’s album: Holywood: In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death, which came after his lighter and Bowie-ish feeling Mechanical Animals. The song was part of a darkness which Marilyn Manson was enduring as a hated icon dubbed negative. It touches on loss and thoughts of suicide along with feeling out of place and persecuted, with lyrics such as:
“This was never my world
You took the angel away
I killed myself to make everybody pay”
7. (S)aint – “I’ve got an F and a C and I’ve got a K too and the only thing that’s missing is a bitch like U.” The lyrics to this song are almost like a clever and dirty kid’s rhyme, yet in their silly simplicity they resonate with power. Listening to this song can embolden one with a sense of confidence. Minus the profanity I think this song has one of Marilyn Manson’s catchiest and radio-friendly hooks ever. If it had been given radio play I think it would have been a sure hit, even in today’s market. The chorus is a fun chant of “What’s my name, what’s my name”, with lyrics like: “You wanted perfect, you got your perfect, Now I’m too perfect for someone like you.” Indeed there was a rather explicit music video made for this song, which you can find on the internet featuring Manson doing some private things ala masturbation and cross dressing.
6. Spade – The way in which this song is performed just sounds perfect to me for a dramatic moment in a movie soundtrack. As a screenwriter I have indeed written scenes where I imagine this song playing. Living life with a lot of movies going in and out of my head, anything that links to such emotions tends to have more meaning with me and this song once again brings out the dramatics of love ten-fold, ending with the chant of “And we said til we die.” The chorus is the accusation of: “You drained my heart.”
5. Mechanical Animals – A story told through music about a relationship, “I was a hand grenade that never stopped exploding, and you were automatic and as hollow as the O in God.” The sheer amount of content in just a couple of lines is generally what makes Marilyn Manson’s music so great, as well as the different angles at which one could interpret them. This song has a break down of a chorus that almost sounds like reverting back to the hair band days of the 80’s, hopping from an electronic garbled transmission into a solo acoustic guitar and Manson’s vocal passionately stating: “They’ll never be good to , bad to you, they’ll never be anything at all.” furthermore he states “I’m never going to be the one for you.” which feels like the relationship in the tale is more or less like ones I have endured, in which it ends with the other party seemingly going off to be someone else with other people, leaving you the same tragic, lost cause of hope.
4. I Put A Spell on You/ Tainted Love/ Sweet Dreams – I put this as a three way tie of cover songs; named in the order that I like them. I Put A Spell On You was on his remix album that came before Antichrist Superstar as well as the soundtrack to the movie Lost Highway. It is what most would consider a demented look at love and yet romantic as anything I have ever heard. The lyrics state: “I don’t care if you don’t want me, because I’m yours anyhow.” Call me sympathetic towards some things stalker-ish, but I truly love his whisperd words of “I love you” which crescendo into a manic screech.
Tainted Love is a great track, not only because it gets stuck in my head, but because Manson’s version has an excellent bass line, really sounds good on a sound system.
Finally, Sweet Dreams makes the list because it was the hit that put Marilyn Manson on the mainstream map and confused my parents into not realizing what sort of CD they were buying for their kid: an inspiring one.
3. Man That You Fear – The final track from Antichrist Superstar, it is not a great singing and it is almost akin to Trent Reznor’s Hurt song, with Reznor having worked on the album with Manson. However, its messages come across with a tragic sound, that touches the stitching in all of our lives as they dwindle with age. Yes, the boy that you loved is now the man that you fear. It is about wishes, dreams, and dirty life.
2. Deformography – I just thought the song had a cool, evil sounding voice effect and thus would listen to it over and over again. Naturally at the stage of my life where I listened to this the lyrics helped with my rebellion and eventual claim for identity. In a dark sort of way this song once again establishes a sense of power and confidence within someone who would possibly have other-wise succumbed to pressures. On the other hand people can say that in the wrong minds lyrics such as: “I’ll tear you down like a whore. I will bury your God in my warm spit,” have the potential to cause damage. My mind was the right place at the right time for them however.
1. Beautiful People – When I think of a good rock song this is always the first one I think of. No matter how many times one hears it, it still gets the blood to pumping and just brightens the day; even if the message is more or less an attack on certain aspects of society.
