Mechanical Animals

I saw me at two Manson shows in like two weeks just recently and you know he's sober now and he sounds and looks better than ever and Dude, like 23,000 people showed up.

Yeah, it was huge huge at both shows huge shows Everyone's singing every word whether it was from Antichrist superstar mechanical animals the new stuff and And I'm like, I'm so happy, you know, to see him come through the meat grinder of me too.

And also now be sober, have a very happy marriage.

And I'm like, man, that's amazing.

And Pale King is great.

So he definitely was playing with that idea.

And he's always done that, especially during Antichrist Superstar and Hollywood, Mechanical Animals.

But he was always very smart.

The albums that are my favorite and I think are the most universal.

are a little bit more upbeat, and that is Portrait of an American Family, the originator, the follow-up to Antichrist Superstar called Mechanical Animals, which I love so much, and I think was a little bit of an answer to people who said, oh, it got a little dark.

And then also for me, it's the Golden Age of Grotesque, which I believe actually balances that Mechanical Animals and Antichrist Superstar in a really wonderful way and kind of ties a nice bow on it.

But in between that, you've got Holy Wood, which is a favorite for a lot of people, and Antichrist Superstar, which was the one that kicked it off with Trent Reznor and that much darker, much crazier sound.

So, you know, but if you're a punk guy and you like comedy stuff and weirdo stuff, if you're a weirdo like me, listen to Portrait of an American Family.

Start there.

And otherwise, if you're not a weirdo and you just want a really great album, I'm saying start with Mechanical Animals.

This record is just really...

Did it occur to you while reading this, in a previous episode, a few years ago now, we did an episode on the question of whether or not it is morally acceptable to listen to the work of, or in any way experience the work of artists that we think are reprehensible people.

And in that, we talked at some length about our relationship to now disgraced rock singer Marilyn Manson, whom as an artist, we think had a real good run from about 1994 to maybe 2000, right? And did you, Patrick, get the sense that this in any way informed Mechanical Animals in Hollywood?

Holywood, I did draw...

I wasn't thinking of mechanical animals, but I definitely saw the connection to Holywood.

Because Holywood's got explicit references to the Kennedy assassination, and there's diagrams in the booklet.

So I definitely saw that connection.

Well,

mechanically...

It had the hits Seen the Doctor and Long Way Down.

In 1998, Marilyn Manson released Mechanical Animals.

This one was inspired by 1970s glam rock.

And it hit number one on the Billboard Albums chart.

I think musically it touches on all points of his career.

You've got a bit of electronica, sort of, uh, you know, a la Mechanical Animals.

Um, you've got loads of that aggie heavy industrial shit on here.

Front Toward En- Front toward Enemy is like Antichrist era-