Portrait of an American Family
In just 3 days this album will turn 20 years old and as geriatric as that makes me feel I can't deny how influential this record was to me. It cultivated my tastes and identity. It informed me as a person. I was a young shy white kid growing up in the suburbs of NYC who was struggling with his sense of self. Marilyn Manson exposed the hypocrisy all around me. My reservations about myself disappeared when listening to "Lunchbox." Manson helped me become an autonomous person. His music allowed me to explore the demons in my head. His songs were about drugs, abuse and all this repressed anguish. He expressed his own demons in these songs. Sometimes written tongue-in-cheek, his intent was always to expose the silent crimes of an entire nation. The hidden underbelly of sexual abuse, rape, violence and bullying. Manson took all of this pain and exhibited it in all its ugliness. He embodied the demons in our heads. He became the antichrist. Repressed America was terrified of him and that was the entire point. I wouldn't be the same person today if it weren't for this album and the two that followed it. He introduced me to Skinny Puppy, David Lynch and KMFDM. I carried around a lunchbox in high school, wore black lipstick a spiked collar and Docs with purple laces. I smoked weed in the woods before class, sketching lollipops and syringes while quoting his lyrics on the back of tests in math class. Thank you Marilyn Manson!