Marilyn Manson - Mechanical Animals
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Free Music Notes for Mechanical Animals
Free Music Review: Give it a Chance
Hit: 5 Stars
This is the album that made so many listeners drop their headphones just because it didn't sound like antichrist superstar. Yes, superstar is an amazing album, but get over it. This album is also an amazing album, just in a different way. Manson is expanding his view of music and art, something we should all be open to. In the style of David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, Manson becomes Omega and continues the journey of the antichrist begun in the album before. This is actually a prequel to Antichrist Superstar. The plot is pretty complex so I won't go into it, but basically it shows the rise of a rock star as he looks at his world corrupted by drugs and government mind washing. This is showed perfectly in every song. "The Dope Show" is a glam masterpiece perpetuating the theme that we've all become mindless zombies. One of the most interesting songs on the album is "Speed of Pain" which boasts a haunting tune and great lyrics. When Manson sings "I want to sleep, but I can't lay on my back because there's a knife for every day that I've known you," you know this is a man that knows the pain of drugs. The ironically fun "I Don't Like the Drugs but the Drugs Like Me" is full of glamour but also is chucked full of Manson's anger at the world and christianity. The only problem with this album is it comes a bit to close to becoming repetative and noisy in the middle. With songs like "New Model 15" and "User Friendly" back to back it almost makes you want to turn the radio down. But that's the only flaw. The song "The End of the World" explains exactly what it says and the final song "Coma White" is an extemely sad and poignet expression of exactly what the album states. If you can get over the fact it's not antichrist superstar, you'll realize this album has so much to offer. It's not his best, but it's probably my favorite. Give in to the glam and sadness and give it a listen. You'll be doing yourself a favor.Free Music Review: Commericial? Yes, but so was Nirvana's Nevermind.
Hit: 5 Stars
This is the album that marked the fall of Manson. People started seeing him as something ridiculous, a sell-out, something almost as fake and disposable as all the other generic rock out there. You see, Manson committed the most dangerous move in the game of maintaining a loyal fanbase: he completely changed his style. I don't think there's been any other artist in the nineties, in fact maybe no major artist in rock music EVER, who has changed his sound quite so drastically in the course of just one album. And yet Manson gets absolutely no credit for this. Then again, I guess that's not surprising when you consider the standards America judges its music by.Anyhow, to set the record straight, Mechanical Animals is not a sellout. Its glossier, of course, the song structures are much simpler, the goth stuff is all gone, but that doesn't change the fact that its a great artistic statement and shows Manson taking a huge risk by throwing out practically all of the elements that made Antichrist Superstar such a smash. Not to mention that half (7 out of 14) songs on this album could be considered ballads, something that hardly helps an artist's commercial success in the land of hard rock. Holywood is the sellout album, taking the theme of Antichrist and repeating it in more commercial song structures. Mechanical Albums is Manson's equivalent of Nevermind, an album so amazing that you can't help but grow to love the slick production and verse/chorus/verse songstructure that many people think somehow completely invalidates the artistic value of an album.
With all that said, I also have to note that this is Manson's darkest and most depressing album. (...)
Lastly, Manson's wit and dark humor highlight a handful of songs, from The Dope Show "drugs, they say, are made in California" to "User-Friendly," which uses some nicely timed female guest appearances.
Free Music Review: Product of a Plastic World
Hit: 5 Stars
Mechanical Animals wasn't my first Manson albums and aside from the radio/MTV tracks & videos, I really didn't get too much out of it when it first came out. It was okay, had some catchy tunes and I didn't dislike it, but it never quite felt the way I thought a Marilyn Manson album should. I've noticed a great many people I've known who otherwise dislike Manson enjoyed this album. Probably because the high concentration of pop-oriented tunes fit closer to what they're used to hearing. That's great, but if they were paying attention to what the lyrics are actually SAYING they might not feel the same way. It's pretty much a rocket-propelled glam grenade aimed straight at the music industry and all those who play in its shadows.
Of course, I have to admit that I myself had not paid very close attention to the lyrics until recently. Once a friend opened my eyes to the depth the tracks actually offer aside from their catchy hooks and choruses, I began to appreciate this album more. Songs like 'Speed of Pain' and 'User Friendly' show the same trademark Manson social commentary and introspection that's prevalent in all his other albums. What's different here is the experimental core. David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust and Marilyn Manson has two characters to offer: Alpha (a version of himself) and Omega (pronounced like Oh-ME-Gah), an android-like alien. Despite what you may have heard Manson did not receive a boob job for this cover, nor has he personally ordered any school shootings. Whew, right?
Anyways, there's plenty of creativity here for both your eyes (the album cover) and your ears. If you play it in rotation with Antichrist Superstar you can get a great deal more out of it story-wise. Yes, there is a story told in these songs. It's part fiction and part auto-biography. Just like Marilyn Manson created itself for. :)
Free Music Review: It disappoints me how under appreciated it was...
Hit: 5 Stars
Marilyn Manson was certainly accepted into the top notch of the metal world with the release of "Antichrist Superstar", but it seems that when he went to make some changes for the sake of originality, fans were stubborn. Mechanical Animals laid out some of the finest soundtracks of Manson's career (from Portrait, Antichrist, Holy Wood, and Golden Age), and while it is a little more emphasis on the technical effects, the lyrics are deep and meaningful, the vocals kick as much ass as ever, and the music is incredibly catchy. This era (along with Holy Wood) has my favorite group of band members: Manson (vocals, duh) Madona Wayne Gacy (keyboard/effects) Twiggy Ramirez (bass/guitar) and then John 5 on live guitar and Ginger Fish on live drums. Twiggy disappointingly left the band (replaced by Tim Skold...), but there's nothing better than listening to the original bass lines he invented, breaking from the cliché of playing the same pattern as the guitar, and rather creating his own melody.
Best Songs on the CD: uh oh, all of them! Great Big White World, Disassociative, The Speed of Pain, Fundamentally Lothsome, The Last Day on Earth, and especially Coma White* are excellent examples of the band's ability to crank out melodic, eerie, and meaningful tracks. On the other hand, The Dope Show*, Rock Is Dead*, Posthuman*, I Want To Disappear*, I Don't Like The Drugs, New Model No. 15, and User Friendly get your adrenaline going, and offer some of the best heavy music that Manson offers. (*=5 best)
Okay, if you're still reading this, then you're very patient. Summary I should have began with: DON'T BURN THIS CD, DON'T DOWNLOAD IT, GET A JOB AND SPEND A FEW BUCKS TO SUPPORT THE ARTIST YOU LIKE! People are too lazy...also buy all of Marilyn Manson's other CD's, his EP's, his videos/DVD's, his book...
Free Music Review: Great album
Hit: 5 Stars
Marilyn Manson is the craftiest pop opportunist to come down the pike since Malcolm McLaren. Culling rock elements that have been hammered down by others, he has cultivated a clever pastiche that does a suitably lewd -- if not particularly inventive -- job of preserving shock rock tradition. Now that he and his band have milked their kinship with Nine Inch Nails for all it was worth on Antichrist Superstar, the motley crew has moved on to fresh blood. Mechanical Animals, meticulously produced by Michael Beinhorn, unwinds like a high-tech tribute to the dissociative David Bowie of the '70s. The cover art features Manson airbrushed into a creepy androgyne that looks like Aladdin Sane with breast implants. Inside, a space-age glam shot of Manson emblazoned with "Omega and the Mechanical Animals" is an unmistakable reference to Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The musical connections are just as pronounced. "The Dope Show" smacks of "Cracked Actor"; "Rock Is Dead" resurrects "The Jean Genie"; "The Speed of Pain" is a recombobulated "Space Oddity"; and "I Don't Like Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)" hints at "Fame" with its slack groove and a conspicuous line about 15 minutes of shame.
Beinhorn, whose specialty is tidying up unruly rock for easy radio consumption (see Soul Asylum, Soundgarden, Hole, etc.), provides just the right touch of studio gloss and coaxes out Manson's sensitive side in the form of moody ballads. The acousticisms of "Coma White" contrast nicely with the dark music, and Manson does his best Nick Cave on "Fundamentally Loathsome," but crooning isn't really his cup of tea. The strongest tracks -- "I Want to Disappear" and "New Model No. 15" -- cut the gloom with doses of new wave cheesiness instead.
Still I think this album is great. The music is amazing and the lyrics are beautiful.....