Review: Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar (1996)
So Halloween is coming up soon, children. Thus, I am proclaiming this week as ‘spooky album week’, where I will be putting ALLEGED scary and creepy sounding records to the test. Not only will I be giving them my usual snob-laced rating, but I’m giving a rating known as ‘Bela Lugosi‘s Shivers & Creepiness‘. This rating reflects how much terror the album generates within me whilst listening to it in a pitch black basement with nothing but a blacklight for company.
The natural place for me to begin my search for the scariest album of all time would be with the king of today’s ghouls and freaks, Marilyn Manson. Antichrist Superstar was released in 1996 and boy do I remember all the 'controversy' surrounding the release. Those were the days… Pat Robertson telling all that Marilyn Manson and Dungeons & Dragons would bring demons up to drag you into hell, hoards of PTA mothers with their signs of protest… OH THE VILLANY… OH THE HORROR… look at how EVIL and VIOLENT Marilyn Manson is!
Of course, today there’s a straight-up criminal in the White House and we have kids playing Grand Theft Auto. Suddenly, 1996 seems pretty tame.
This is the start (or ending) to a ‘trilogy’. The rest of the story would be completed on the subsequent studio albums by Manson. In addition, this album alone is divided into three parts, and all the songs are loosely tied together. I guess that would make it a ‘loose’ concept album, then. But since you have to smoke pot and worship Anton LeVay in order to comprehend all of it, I’m just going to completely ignore the ‘concept’ part of this album (such as it is).
“Irresponsible Hate Anthem” kicks off with a crowd chanting “we hate love, we love hate” and then the guitars and drums take over, pounding the listener with it’s metallic fury. This is a fast-paced, if not a little orthodox head-banger to start the album with. The momentum really takes off when “The Beautiful People” begins. This is Manson at his finest. I don’t know if I should refer to Manson as heavy metal, maybe I should just say hard rock instead… but I‘m going to go with ‘death pop‘ just because I like the sound of it. Regardless, “The Beautiful People” should be a lock for top ten songs of all-time in that particular genre. It takes talent to make something so heavy so catchy, and have the general mall-shopping idiot teenager want to pick up the album because of it, while still being able to please a hardcore fan at the same time.
Speaking of talents (or lack thereof, depending on your opinion), this album was produced by Trent Reznor, and his signature dark, electronic sheen is definitely noticeable. In fact, it might be fair to say that Antichrist Superstar is like a ‘lost’ NIN record, with a guest vocalist included. Danny Lohner and Chris ‘tweaker’ Vrenna also contribute on certain tracks, making the Nine Inch Nails influence on this album even more apparent.
Sometime before ClearChannel took over the world, I listened to a few radio stations, and I remember one of my locals playing the single “Tourniquet” when it came out. Of course now they just play Puddle Of Mudd on repeat and couldn’t imagine associating themselves with something daring like Marilyn Manson (I just called Marilyn Manson daring by the way… but it was in comparison to Puddle Of Mudd to be fair to myself). I really don’t know what this little anti-radio tirade is about, but I do know that “Tourniquet” rocks out something fierce.
The headbanger’s dream becomes increasingly wetter with tracks like “Angel With Scabbed Wings”; it’s militant beat coupled with Manson’s pseudo-rapping gives me images of an alternate universe where Hitler won the war and marches his troops through town. Or maybe I’ve been watching Diabolik too much… I dunno. Then there’s “The Reflecting God” with it’s absolutely crushing chorus, and the metallic divinity of the album’s title track, which sounds like Nine Inch Nails on steroids.
All of this is good fun if you’re the type who likes to whack your head up against the walls on a nightly basis, but does the album live up to it’s ‘scary’ hype? Well, “Dried Up, Tied Up, And Dead To The World” is a vile dirge into the unknown depths, “Kinderfeld” features weird Halloween singing from Manson, and “Minute Of Decay” is particularly strange and scary.
The best creepiness however, comes in the form of “Cryptorchid” and “Man That You Fear”. The former is a neat little slice of Numan-Bowie-influenced space rock which seems to come from out of nowhere, while the latter is a spine tingling number that closes the album on a sinister note, making the listener feel like something is slowly crawling up the back of their neck.
However, the album seems to seriously drag at some points. One or two tracks could have been cut, which would have made Antichrist Superstar a much tighter, more well-rounded record. You can definitely tell Trent Reznor is playing guitar on tracks like “Mister Superstar” and “Deformography”, but that doesn’t stop them from being more generic than a bagful of vanilla jobbers working Raw dark matches. “1996” was apparently Manson’s attempt at ripping off Ministry, which doesn’t work for him at all. “Little Horn” has lyrics so bad it rivals Korn, and finally “Wormboy” has Marilyn in serious danger of slipping back into the crappy Smells Like Children era (which I’ll probably review when I’m in one of THOSE kind of moods).
Antichrist Superstar was the slingshot Manson used to break into the mainstream, and while the man-freak and his band haven’t always put out quality material, this album is probably the best of the catalogue. I suppose if you don’t like dark, heavy, and/or loud music you probably won’t like this. The evil overtones of the album are more in the typical heavy metal zombie movie vein rather than the serious, Nick Cave murder ballad type of evil… but either way, you should also avoid this if you’re a book burning right winger or leftist member of the thought police (har har har).
I’m almost feeling guilty about giving this a half-decent rating. Isn’t there some type of stigma that if you like anything by Marilyn Manson, you have no credibility? OH - I never had any to begin with. Forget about it….. 6.5/10
Bela Lugosi‘s Shivers & Creepiness rating: 4/10 - Not really as scary or completely unholy as it’s cracked up to be. Decent atmosphere when played in the darkness, but nothing you can’t handle. I recommend you burn a few of the slower tracks onto your ‘best of’ Halloween mixtape and leave it at that. Sorry Marilyn, but like a good Friday The 13th movie, you’re more funny than scary.