This oddball Philip Glass production, featuring Iggy Pop and hallucinogenic paraphrasing of Maharishi-era Beatles tracks, really is a more jolly and entertaining affair than you might expect from a Charles Manson-themed rock-opera. Some fantastic gems in here, and if you're a Beatles fan prepare to have the top of your skull blown off.
In 2000, Marilyn Manson not only was recovering from his fans' rejection of Mechanical Animals, he was scarred from Columbine and, worst of all, he was no longer America's demon dog. What was Brian Warner to do, standing on such uneasy ground? As a smart man and savvy marketer, he knew that it was time to consolidate his strengths, blend Omega with Antichrist Superstar, and return with a harsh, controversial, operatic epic: a vulgar concept album to seduce his core audiences of alienated teens and cultural cops. The resulting album, Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), is intended as the third part of the trilogy beginning with Antichrist Superstar, and its convoluted story line is fairly autobiographical, but the amazing thing isn't the story - it's that he figured out to meld the hooks and subtle sonic shading of Mechanical Animals with the ugly, neo-industrial metallicisms of Antichrist…
Antichrist Superstar performed its intended purpose – it made Marilyn Manson internationally famous, a living realization of his fictional "antichrist superstar." He had gained the attention of not only rock fans, but the public at large; however, many critics bestowed their praise not on the former Brian Warner, but on Trent Reznor, Manson's mentor and producer. Surely angered by the attention being focused elsewhere, he decided to break from Reznor and industrial metal with his third album, Mechanical Animals. Taking his image and musical cues from Bowie, Warner reworked Marilyn Manson into a sleek, androgynous space alien named Omega, à la Ziggy Stardust, and constructed a glammy variation of his trademark goth metal.
The first thing to strike the listener about these 2006 Avie recordings of Bach's Sonata for viola da gamba and harpsichord will be how loud they are. While neither instrument is noted for its power to project, the instruments are recorded so closely here as to be gargantuan in these recordings by Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock. After adjusting the volume, the second thing to strike the listener will be how brilliantly played they are.
Marilyn Manson returns with his eleventh studio album We Are Chaos via Loma Vista Recordings. Co-produced by Manson and Grammy Award winner Shooter Jennings [Brandi Carlile, Tanya Tucker], the ten-track opus was written, recorded, and finished before the global pandemic.
Marilyn Manson is a perpetually controversial presence and one of the key figures in aggressive, boundary-challenging rock music. Manson became a mainstream antihero in the 1990s - much to the chagrin of conservative politicians, religious leaders, and concerned parents - ruffling feathers and shocking the masses with his dark brand of glam-influenced industrial metal, outspoken social commentary, and incendiary live shows. The self-proclaimed "Antichrist Superstar," he peddled a disquieting vision of society that focused on sex, drugs, violence, politics, and organized religion, which pushed many of his singles - including "The Dope Show," "The Beautiful People," and a cover of Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" - into the upper reaches of the modern rock charts during the late '90s and early 2000s…
The High End of Low is the seventh studio album by Marilyn Manson. Manson first began work on the album with guitarist Tim Sköld. However, Sköld left the band when the vocalist reunited with former bassist Twiggy Ramirez. The album was produced by Manson and Twiggy (who dropped the Ramirez moniker) along with former Nine Inch Nails co-producer and keyboardist Chris Vrenna, as well as Antichrist Superstar (1996) and Mechanical Animals (1998) co-producer Sean Beavan. It was the last album to feature the band's long-time drummer Ginger Fish. The record received mixed reviews from music critics, with several publications praising it as their best album since Mechanical Animals; although others were critical of both its length and more personal lyrical themes…