Marilyn Manson - Born Villain (Cooking Vinyl)
I was at Target and had $15 remaining on a gift card. My knee-jerk reaction was to pick up some Star Wars Legos (they had Jabba’s Palace) but I really couldn’t justify spending an extra $40 on plastic I would be finished putting together in half hour. I didn’t want The Hangover 2 or whatever movie they were pushing, or any other music they had, for that matter--besides Whitney Houston’s greatest hits (seriously). So, lo and behold, I see Marilyn Manson’s got a new record out. Yippee. His last two albums were easily forgettable (2007’s Eat Me, Drink Me and 2009’s The High End of Low) and 2003’s The Golden Age of Grotesque didn’t really do anything for me either. 2000’s Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) had a couple memorable tracks but really, meh. Really the last thing he put out that I gave a damn about was 1998’s Mechanical Animals.
So obviously I figured I was wasting my money and should buy a soda and some cigarettes instead. Or maybe that $5 DVD containing the advertised “20 best episodes” of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. But I went out on a limb and walked to the counter with the record. On the front was a sticker promoting Manson’s cover of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain.” I almost put the album back when I saw the sticker. “Dude, just quit the foreplay and put out a covers album. You’re washed up, you’re over 40 and no one care’s anymore. Quit trying to fool yourself and everyone else into believing you’re not on the free-fall decline.” My mother-in-law was standing next to me and she said, “We can listen to that in the car if you want. I like Carly Simon.” Wrong answer, I figured.
We put the disc in (the cover is the last song on the album) and gave the song a spin. I've gotta say, it's not bad. Johnny Depp apparently played drums on the song--which was more of a novelty than anything, so really, who cares. But what was different about this cover as opposed to, say, “Personal Jesus” or “Tainted Love” or “Highway to Hell” is that this one wasn‘t by any means just at par. It was excellent. Not the predictable tons of production and gospel choruses with crap keyboard blips. This sounded like it was recorded in the dark--stripped down and minimal (much more than previous efforts), not as heavy. Manson’s angry, snotty, coke-nose wail was present, but something was different. There was pain in his voice, something I’d never really heard in there before.
The funny thing is that my mother-in-law really liked it, liked it enough she insisted on playing it for her husband. Yeah, he dug it too. Charles Bukowski said, “When your parents start liking your work that means it’s bad,” which is not really inaccurate, but I was happy they enjoyed it regardless.
Got home and listened to the rest of the disc. Shit’s actually really good. This guy just completely reinvented himself as a gothed up David Bowie. Berlin/“Heroes”/Low Bowie on songs like “Hey, Cruel World” and “Slo-Mo-Tion.” “Pistol Whipped” is arguably as good as anything in Manson’s canon, but the song “No Reflection,” I gotta tell you, is easily my favorite song on the album. It's right up there with “I Don’t Like the Drugs But the Drugs Like Me,” “The Dope Show,” and “It’s a Long, Hard Road Out of Hell.”
Maybe it was a momentary lapse of reason, I dunno. But I checked out what music pundits were saying because I figured I was still drunk from the night before. Nope. They were pretty much echoing what I was thinking upon first, second, and third listen. I’ll be damned--I didn’t waste my money.
Come to find out, former bass player Twiggy Ramirez (Jeordie White) is back in the mix; I know that’s been a big boost in Manson’s musical resurrection. The last three albums showed how much his presence was sorely missed. I'm really glad I didn’t buy the Legos. They’d be sitting on the shelf (with the others) collecting dust and I’d have thought Marilyn Manson was dead and gone. Now I have Born Villain which I listen to in its entirety several times a week. Glad I went out on a limb. Most people probably won’t, but I’m really glad I did. I can get cigarettes anytime