Antichrist Superstar

The second album in a row I have to preface by saying I'm only commenting on the record and listening to it for what it is, separate from the artist that made it. On a personal level, fuck this guy.

I remember when Marilyn Manson sort of came into the spotlight. It was different than anything I'd heard back then and middle school me loved it but didn't really know what to make of it. I used to really like his music and got into it more as I got older but at this point have sort of given him up due to the recent revelations about him as a person. I do think that maybe what makes this album great is the contributions the band made and not necessarily Manson himself. This may be totally wrong but I get the feeling that Manson is a super hard guy to work with (as evidenced by the revolving door of band members) and that the rest of the band, whoever they may be at the time, are likely responsible for the bulk of what's recorded. Some of the lyrics on this album are very smart and offer an interesting point of view into a different way of thinking than is typically seen in mainstream media. Some of the lyrics are super cringey now, though maybe that's looking at them with nearly 30 years of hindsight. And a lot of it seems to be 100% for shock value, but I think that was the intention all along. I mean the album is called Antichrist Superstar.
Beautiful People is a fantastic song and by all accounts was written largely by Twiggy. Play that song for anyone of a fairly large age range and they're not only going to recognize it but tell you it's probably the best songs Manson did and maybe one of the best of the 90s. Dried Up Tied Up is great as well. As is Antichrist Superstar. But there were a few songs I had to skip. Probably just because I don't think Manson really deserves much of my time anymore. This is a tough one to rate. Some of it I really like, some of it is fine. If the whole album was as good as the handful of strongest tracks, it would be a fantastic album. As is, it's middle of the road and I was ready to move on before it was over. 2/5

Nope.

Wanted to like this more but it was pretty exhausting by the end

Lounge music for rapists

Music is bad and Marilyn Manson is a creep.

If I was looking to scratch an industrial itch I think I'd rather listen to Nine Inch Nails. The amount of controversy that continues to follow this man makes the music all the more uncomfortable to listen to. It wasn't horrible, but I won't be listening to this again. 2.5/5 -> 3/5.
On listening again and thinking about this album, I really think the most interesting parts of the music are captured by bands like NIN, and the juvenile "shock" factor is childish. Lowering this to a 2/5.

Qué pereza me ha dado verlo, y eso que lo escuché mucho en la época que se lanzó. No ha sido para tanto, me quedo con Tourniquet y The beautiful people, lo demás se puede oír, pero ha perdido pegada. Lo voy a dejar en 2 ** aunque está cerca de 3.

So let me pre-empt this small review by stating that Brian Warner is human filth. I hope the reckoning will come.

This album however is the peak of Marilyn Manson (the band's) discography. This album is raw and energetic and brings the whole thing, where the album is more than the sum of its parts.

The lyrics with their scathing attacks on corruption, societal hypocrisy and religion. Graphic designer P.R. Brown's artwork with its impressive packaging and dual covers.
The bleak, aggressive and claustrophobic song material by a very talented band is backed a lot by Trent Reznors incredible unsettling production which creates an almost nihilistic atmosphere: it's all there.

It all culminates in "The Reflecting God," already an hour into the 70 minutes. This song where the protagonist (antagonist) of this concept album gets to the end point. Full of riffs, style changes, warped sounds, aggressive crowd sounds and clever lyrics.

This album was an assault and stands as a classic in the industrial metal.

Wait, it's good? Since when is the shock jock producing interesting harmonically pleasing amazing chord progressions? huh.

I have no problem separating the art from the artist, but in this case they are both a piece of shit.

I think it’s Trent Reznor production that saves this from 1 star, but this really is just poor man’s downwards spiral.

The algorithm is really trying to bring me down. First Eminem and now this. I have avoided listening to this wannabe Alice Cooper my whole life and frankly I'm sorry to see it show up on this list.

Pretty inconsequential gross-out music, it proudly wears the Trent Reznor industrial-metal brand right up front. So if you like that stuff, which not everyone does, you'll like this.

Gives rise to some of the most extreme music to come, like Dillinger Escape Plan and their ilk. Marilyn Manson's (if that IS your real name) attempt at genre-bending transgressive provocation is merely a passable mashup of Nine Inch Nails, the aforementioned Alice Cooper - who, by the way, did a far far more interesting and entertaining version of this schtick 25 years prior - and possibly Throbbing Gristle. Take that mix, dirty it up, and voilà! Rock stardom! Fame! Fortune! It's all very self-referential. Wow, that's deep man.

I "like" extreme metal, and you might lump this in that category. But it's unoriginal and frequently boring, and like a lot of stuff that doesn't hit me, devoid of soul. This feeIs like a stage show that just needed a soundtrack. The music kind of sucks, the majority of the people involved are huge assholes, and while that's not in itself a disqualifier of good music, the shenanigans are a distraction.

P.S. The U.S. Congress in the 1990s really had some serious issues, why are they so worried about what your kids are listening to? If you want to MAKE 100% sure kids hear this shit, make a big deal out of how they shouldn't get to hear this shit.

Music for an alienated middle schooler's bedroom or a midwestern kind of racist strip club. Heavy and aggressive metal with enough industrial Trent Reznor influence that the slow sludgy riffs and intensely distorted guitar sounds have a distinctive groove to them. The higher pitch reverby guitar stuff - short phrases or tones repeated as a riff is intensifying - work well to build up an atmosphere and add space to the hyper-compressed mix. The singing is a nasty snarling growl screech that perfectly serves the shock-the-suburban-christians aim of the album, and boy did it. Hook line and sinker. I haven't really heard this since the 90s and in retrospect see how influencial it was on a lot of the screamo punk/metal/grindcore stuff like pg 99. Seems like them and Korn had a couple years head start on the rest more boring Nu Metal they ended up getting lumped in with and sharing a lot of bills with, but that let them establish themselves as a distinct thing. They were the band of choice for my middle school goth friends but even though I liked the songs and videos they were never really my thing. A 2-disc best of Nu Metal compilation could be a 3-4* album, but this is another victim of the late 90s 'CDs are 80 minutes and need to be full' approach to albums. One big hit, a few solid tracks, and probably 40 minutes of filler.

Rapist

I get why it's here, but I really wish it wasn't.

This was on regular rotation during my late teens. Couple of tracks can still kick your arse, the rest feel a tad too superficially depraved for middle-aged me.

Nuuuuuuuu Metalllllll. God damn Manson using the N word in '96? The Beautiful People is a banger. But the rest of this album is fucking tedious. The Reflecting God is okay, from like a doomer perspective.

2.5 maybe, the dumb glam metal tracks work far better

Another album that I regret not listening to at the time because I was brainwashed by the NME and probably listening to Dodgy instead. "Antichrist Superstar" probably doesn't pack the punch it did in '96, and it comes across a bit silly and cartoony now, but there are still some decent tunes on here and the production is incredible.

I didn't hate it, but not gonna set it aside to revisit. Feels like an attempt at going more extreme than specifically NiN, executed by someone much dumber than Trent Reznor.

Looking into the Wikipedia **Political reaction** section, I guess its interesting that this is probably the millennial equivalent of like Kiss or something, where most of the appeal was probably very tied up in kids wanting to piss off their parents. In that sense, that Onion "Going Door to Door to Shock People" headline probably did *way* more to knock MM down a peg than any amount of congressional hearings

Reminds me of an ex - loses a star for that! Sounds more like NIN than I remember, maybe because I didn't know Trent Reznor's work when first listening to MM.
Creepy, disturbing, and very messed up (and so is the music!)