Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
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Free Music Notes for Mechanical Animals
Free Music Review: It's Bowie Influenced, Psychotic, Glam Flavored Brilliance
Hit: 5 Stars
I agree that this is maybe not as exciting, apocolyptic, or heavy as Antichrist Superstar, and the concept isn't as well put together, but I also agree that the music and lyrics are all top notch on this album. Mechanical Animals is full of mid tempo glam rock songs that are no aquired taste if you like the same music as Manson himself, like David Bowie or Queen. It's really very Ziggy Stardust/Aladdin Sane/Diamond Dogs mixed together but with Manson's signature voice and his own brilliant lyrics.
Also, Zim Zum's guitar work is very clear, spacey, and damn effectice for this kind of music. Ginger Fish is a solid and underrated drummer, Manson writes and sings his best lyrics ever, Twiggy's bass is more precise and less sloppy and out of tuned than it was on ACSS, and M.W. Gacy aka Pogo has some amazing keyboard solos, and it's really him who adds the most to this brightly musical outer space oriented glam music.
Now for the concept: Manson is Omega, an alien who falls to Earth, formally the Antichrist but is now on Earth so long he has begun developing human emotions, his band is called the Mechanical Animals, because they are humans with no souls who don't have emotions. Omega is surrounded by humans from Hollywood and realizes how fake and emotionless they trully are. Pretty people are not always interesting people and for an androgyn like Omega, this is very saddening.
THE SONGS:
Great Big White World-One of the best on the album, the guitar line that soars through the intro and throughout the song is georgous, and the lyrics sound like Omega is as of now "not attached to your world". The lyrics border on psychosis, and the song rocks.
The Dope Show-I guess most people have heard this, it's the overplayed major single but don't let radio ruin it for you. It's still a great song and the message of not being a pretty poser is inspiring.
Mechanical Animals-This song sounds epic, and Zim Zum's guitar riffs are a major stand out next to Pogo's furious keyboard outro. Also Manson declared he is no longer the emotionless death machine he once was, he's "just a boy, playing the suicide king."
Rock is Dead-Good single, not great, but the Bowie like "la la" chorus is catchy. You can find this on the Matrix soundtrack. It has a good deflating message to all of the anti-Manson groups.
Disassociative-Another great song with beautiful soaring guitars and keyboards, and psychotic sounding lyrics about being an astronaut in space.
Speed of Pain-First fully acoustic song by Manson with poetic lyrics and a computer like voice doing the chorus.
Posthuman-Not my favorite song, it's fast tempo and has good keyboards but it just didn't do it for me.
I want To Disappear-One of my favorite's on the album, the guitar riff is the catchiest riff on here and the suicidal lyrics are depressing but fun to sing along to.
I Don't Like The Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)-The most sing along song on here, it isn't the best, but the riffs are heavy and the guitar solo at the end makes your hair on your neck stand up.
New Model No.15-This is one of the catchiest songs here. The vocals are once again sing along, the guitar riffs are stompingly good, and the drum machine makes it a good dance song.
User Friendly-Very techno, echoey computer voices, and very catchy. It isn't about drugs, it's about a whore using Omega for sex.
Fundamentally Loathesome-Most people think this is too weird to listen to, but they probablly don't listen to the whole song. This song has the best lyrics on the album, which is a very hard trophy, and it has the best guitar solo on ANY MANSON SONG EVER!!! Zim Zum really proves his chops on this song.
Last Day on Earth-Wow, Marilyn Manson writes a love song!!!! Scary, especially considering who wrote it, but he actually pulls off a heartful vocal performance and the backing music is subtle and sweet.
Coma White-Perfect closer, part acoustic/part electric and the whole song is beautiful. The meaning is nothing, whether drugs, sex, or earthly belongings will make you happy by themselves, happiness comes from inside you. It's about his ex-Rose McGowan and she was a Hollywood girl who turned out to be empty like the other humans.
Free Music Review: Marilyn Manson at his best!
Hit: 5 Stars
I have been listening to all of Marilyn Manson's albums in the weeks awaiting his newest release "The High End of Low" which was just released May 26th, 2009. I spent much of my teen years listening to Marilyn Manson and consider myself a big fan of his work. But this does not make me biased in any way towards the high and lows (no pun intended) of his career. So this is my review series of all his albums. Hope you get to check them all out.
First of all this album came out in 1998. It is hard for me to believe that this album is over 10 years old already! I was 14 just becoming a freshman in highschool the first time I heard this album. I remember listening to every track on this album with awe. It was like listening to everything I loved about Rock music all in one album. It was different than his previous releases and alot of fans thought he lost his edge. Well for me, that couldn't be any farther from the truth. I remember listening to it and thinking it had a shiny new sound to it... But with a good old fashioned vintage feel to it. I heard influences of David Bowie, Kiss, Alice Cooper, and many more greats. It wasn't like the other music that was big at the time like boy bands, pop punk, or even nu metal. It was a gem in a world where music was just getting worse and all sounded the same and generic.
As far as the track listing goes this is in my opinion the most solid album by Marilyn Manson. It didn't have as many filler songs as Anti-christ superstar had and it was something that while coming very close, he may never have quite nailed again with his subsequent releases. This IS my favorite Marilyn Manson album. Every single song on it is great in my opinion. From the opening riff of "Great big white world" to the fading echo of "Coma White" this album has it all! I don't care what type of rock you like, this has it all. Rock, Hard Rock, Glam, Industrial, punk, Classic, Acoustic, and more.
To make the album even cooler it had a blue tinted packaging that could be used as a decoder to decode hidden messages inside the album. Which today might not be as cool to me since I am much older, but to a 14 year old kid this was like the coolest thing ever. I could imagine it being alot like one of the classic Led Zeppelin album covers like "Physical Graffiti" where you had interchangable pictures in the windows on the album cover. But we all know that gimmicks don't make a great album, so what makes this such a great album? Well its the content of the record itself! The Music!
The album itself is consists of 14 tracks. While the album is solid, it does have a split feel to it. While there is really no specific pattern, it does seem that the earlier songs are the heavier songs, and the last half is more of the darker songs. But overall this album is not as dark as say "Holywood". In many ways it is his least dark album and in other ways it is the most dark. But the darkness portrayed in this album is like a very bright colored darkness. Like being in the underworld of a very bright and populated city. It is by no means a "gothic" album. It is an album about modern day addictions and depressions. About the things in our life that we think make us happy but can never understand why we are so sad all the time. Even though this album came out in 1998, I would say it is more relevant in today's society with all of our addictions to technology and painkillers.
Here is the track list:
1. "Great Big White World"
2. "The Dope Show"
3. "Mechanical Animals"
4. "Rock Is Dead"
5. "Disassociative"
6. "The Speed of Pain"
7. "Posthuman"
8. "I Want to Disappear"
9. "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)"
10. "New Model No. 15"
11. "User Friendly"
12. "Fundamentally Loathsome"
13. "The Last Day on Earth"
14. "Coma White"
I am not going to go into detail on each song because I believe this is an album that needs to be listened to as a whole without any predetermined thoughts or ideas as to which songs are better than others. I think that might ruin the experience. But this is my review of Marilyn Manson's Mechanical Animals album.
Free Music Review: the glitters of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll!
Hit: 5 Stars
After the unbeatable brilliance of "Antichrist Superstar" filled with raw power-enduced rage, no casual music-listener would ever believe that the group known as Marilyn Manson could put out an album that could actually soothe the eardrum along with its conceptual brilliance and beautiful song-writing. Then they put out this, Mechanical Animals, one of the most beautiful and thought-provoking works of the 1990s. Although not embraced by those looking for the same kind of energy and rage that made Antichrist rule the charts, the listeners who actually gave this piece of art a chance were thouroughly impressed.The first chord of the opening 5-minute GREAT BIG WHITE WORLD already brings the listener in a world not seen in "Antichrist Superstar". This beautiful and sad rock song shows our world as a place where nothing heals and nothing grows, it is simply just a great big white world and we are drained of our colors.
The enchanting opener then goes into the pop hit THE DOPE SHOW that is not really talking about drugs, but actually about pop culture and how people make money off of your face and then in the end leaves you behind.
The title track MECHANICAL ANIMALS then shows the hollowness in a woman that has displeased the character of Omega and he tries to assure her that he himself am not "mechanical" and therefore they will never see eye to eye.
The rocking ROCK IS DEAD gets the message out that whatever makes rock and roll or shock rock so exciting is something we create ourselves and that it is getting old, anyone can shock anyone, just put it to bed already.
The beautifully tragic DISASSOCIATIVE has a David Bowie-"Space Oddity" feel to it as the perspective of a floating and stranded astronaut in space is compared to Omega sitting on a world that's been slowly killing him.
THE SPEED OF PAIN, another beautifully depressing song shows what it's like on the verge of suicide, but in the end he doesn't care as long as he dies holding someone's hand...
POSTHUMAN then rocks onto the speakers with the assurance that God is only a statistic and then kindly Coma White reminds us all that "all that glitters is cold..."
At our half-way point we are then introduced to the band Omega and the Mechanical Animals as they rock into I WANT TO DISAPPEAR, an anthem saying that all is gone so they might as well disappear as well.
I DON'T LIKE THE DRUGS (BUT THE DRUGS LIKE ME) talks about all the different addictions and what it does to us, like drugs, sex and television, turning us all into zombies who ultimately "fill our souls with dope" in order to feel fine.
NEW MODEL NO. 15, another raging and catchy rock song shows how sex has become meaningless, that pretty soon we'll all just be having sex with machines, just so long as they "got nothing inside" and are good "in bed at the office"
The rant on sex continues into USER FRIENDLY, chronicling a woman who uses sex as her weapon to get what she wants for the time being and then "deleting the ones that she f***ed"
FUNDAMENTALLY LOATHSOME then gives a lounge-singing type feel as the protagonist wants to "wake up in a world with no pain" but instead "just suffer in a hope to die someday" and then in the end simply states "shoot myself to love you, but if i loved myself i'd be shooting you."
The beautifully tragic and glittery THE LAST DAY ON EARTH then paints a picture of a world completely shutting down and two lost souls finding each other while the planet dies... they'll never say goodbye...
The album comes to a climatic close with the wonderfully written and played ballad COMA WHITE, a memoir of a girl who was from "the perfect world" but let herself go with drugs and suicide, with the protagonist Omega analyzing that "all the drugs in this world won't save her from herself..."
At almost an hour in length, Manson's second masterpiece finally ends leaving the listener wanting more and also the final piece of the trilogy that started with Antichrist Superstar, but don't fret, for he saved the best for last...
Free Music Review: Chapter 2
Hit: 5 Stars
"it's a story..." Yes, most people know that Mechanical Animals is amazing by itself. What most people don't know is that the whole series of three albums starting with Antichrist Superstar is a story. I won't put this in quotes cause i don't know if these are manson's exact words, but he said something along these lines (i'll only put the parts i clearly remember in quotes):Antichrist Superstar is the first part of the story, it's about a boy who is disgusted with society and mainstream. Mechanical Animals is the boy's rebellion as he becomes a man, he tried to rebel against society but in the end it ended up being sell-out and became part of the mainstream he hated. "I made fun of myself with that album, it wasn't to be taken too seriously." Holy Wood is the story of the man who is now so utterly disgusted with what he's become by trying to rebel and turning into one of the sellouts he hates, that he resorts to suicide.
That's the basic story in a nutshell... and everything goes along with it... even the album covers. Look at the cover for antichrist... it's obviously something of torture and animosity. The character feels tortured by society and wants to break away from it and do his own thing. The cover of mechanical.. It's just plain and simple, the character, as he rebels, suddenly becomes popular for it. ("famous for not wanting to be famous") he is stripped naked, and so deprived of his identity by the media etc. that he/she becomes an it, with no clear sexual definition. The cover of Holy Wood... it's the character crucified. He's stripped bare on the cross, but this time it's because he's dying, society has nailed his hands and feet to the wood and now he becomes a martyr.
Personally...i think this story sounds rather suspiciously like Kurt Cobain...
But any way you look at it i think it's pure genius on manson's part, to create a trilogy of albums that not only tell stories by themselves, but can be put together to create one master story. When in the character of Marylin Manson, he's playing out a story, and has been for a while.. through music, image, and pyschology. The people who love him are part of the story, the people who hate him are part of the story. The ones who ignore him or don't know about him are the only ones who escape being involuntarily part of this master role-playing story.
The music is not only excellent, but it follows this pattern... MTV was manson's tool for mechanical animals. all the fans who abandoned him because they thought he sold out did exactly what they were supposed to do.. those who stuck with him did too.. and those who became new fans purely because they saw it on mtv are part of it too. Whether it was actually manson or reznor (who very much made manson what he is today) who came up with this plot i don't know.. probably it grew out of the music and the working together and the concerts and the image... i don't know if he originally had this whole plan in mind or just came up with it as the stuff took off.. but whatever it is it's amazing.
Yes and as for the music... the music is amazing, as i believe i said. It's diverse, moves along in a good pattern, and has got some great headbanging riffs. He's amazing with vocals, and it's the vocals i think that first drew me to the music, the uniqueness of it is unparalleled. Rock on... and keep the stories rolling...
Yeah.. the ability to create albums that stand alone as masterpeices of music and art that at the same time are incorporated in an overall plan is really something... at least i'm very impressed with it. Any way you look at manson's stuff it's genius.. from the overall planning to the flow of the songs right down to the riffs and drums and way the vocals are laid on.
Amazing
Free Music Review: MECHANICAL ANIMALS : A MASTERPIECE!!!
Hit: 5 Stars
hello. this, for me, its the best emotional and serious album of Mr. Marilyn Manson (Brian Warner). it has 14 songs + a hidden CD-Rom track. these 14 songs contains pain, suffering and all its pointed in the world of drugs which, once we are in, we cannot come back. this album made me think about how life its very important and also, made me think of how the future world can be. i didnt bought the album now in 2005 but, ive got it since i bacame a MM fan in late 1998 when i still was a kid. besides Antichrist Superstar and Holy Wood, this its still the best mature emotional album of Marilyn Manson.
1.Great Big White World 10/10 (very good song and lyrics)
2.The Dope Show 10/10 (awesome song that point in the world famous rockstars and drugs)
3.Mechanical Animals 10/10 (at first, i didnt liked it very much but, once i heard all the album like 20 or 100 times, it became my favorite)
4.Rock Is Dead 10/10 (whoa!!! this song really rocks also its a good accompaining to the Matrix movie)
5.Disassociative 8/10 (very emotional and has very good lyrics and music. Manson feels pain in this song and you can hear him. this song made me cry as this song reminds me all my pains that i had)
6.Speed Of Pain 10/10 (another emotional track is besides my heart. I LOVE THIS SONG!!)
7.Posthuman 7/10 (not bad at all. this song has quite techno sound. it isnt that great but, its still a good song to forget the pains we had during track 5 and 6.
8.I want To Disappear 10/10 (i love this song!! it has very good lyrics and it has a classic rock sound)
9.I Dont Like The Drugs 10/10 (not bad at all. this song sounded good as a single + the video its very funny)
10.New Model N.15 8/10 (this song points to the main character of the album "OMEGA".
11.User Friendly 10/10 (great song with great pornstars during the lyrics that moans)
12.Fundamentally Loathsome 10/10 (very great song! it has a '70 rock sound. you will not be disappoint)
13.Last Day On Earth 7/10 (well, it isnt that bad. but i still listen to it besides the other tracks)
14.Coma White 10/10 (man, THIS IS GREAT!! IT HAS ALL THE REASONS TO BE: GREAT VOCAL SOUND, GREAT MUSIC, GREAT LYRICS AND GREAT STAND-OUT TRACK TO FINISH OFF THE ALBUM + ITS VERY LONG THAN THE OTHER TRACKS. IT LENGHTS 5:40)
15.Untitled Track 10/10 (this song can be found on the album by put the CD in a PC CD-ROM drive and then, you'll see an animation made by Marilyn Manson. after that, wait some seconds and, you will hear a background song during the animation. well, for me this track its one of my favorites too. its Manson speaking with an alien voice that talks about the end of the humans generation and, the beginning of a new future generation. in this case "OMEGA" and the Mechanical Animals.
what more can i say?? dont download the album. just go ahead and buy yourself a copy of this piece of history. i advise you: buy the Explicit Cover that was released for the U.S. only. has it is the 1st print of the 1998 release. new releases has only Manson in front cover with wroted "OMEGA". this album stand-out to my CD collection also for the great covers. its great to see tha band members of MM in alien style. i like also the design of the CD that it is all white with the words in grey "COMA" in all the CD. SO, GO AHEAD AND BUY DONT LET THIS PASS YOU BY.