We saw it on Google Streetview…
[Video][Website]
[4.67]
Jonathan Bradley: It usually takes me a bit of listening to recall which is the Manson I enjoy most: on revisiting his catalogue, it turns out the answer is his Mechanical Animals singles. This might be an unusual choice; dark glam should not be the natural mode for an artist whose invests his sense of camp so wholeheartedly in horror tropes. But only in opposition to the Clinton ’90s could Manson make sense anyway; when the culture wars shifted to new terrain he and his band, whose tweaking of Christianity and suburbia was never effectively grotesque in its own right, became all but inexplicable. Monsters do thrill, but they need to be more than what frightens their nemeses. Could this new single’s lyric, “What’s a nice place like this doing round people like us” ever have sounded anything but silly from a man who, for around 18 years now, has been unable to define what exactly is so scary about a people like him? I like this title though, and the way tears it out of his throat: with a staticked ugliness that makes me wish he’d thought harder about what it is that was supposed to make him so scary all along.
[4]
Edward Okulicz: Manson is under the impression that shouting and straining over a chorus will make its, frankly, tame riff sound menacing and evil. This has never been the case — the oozing menace of his best work always came from the rhythm (think the schaffel of “The Beautiful People”, or the carnal basslines of Mechanical Animals) that made them work like a slow-moving virus rather than a hammer to the face. This has all the subtlety of a keyboard warrior threatening you in the YouTube comments sections — just an ugly, artless record.
[2]
Crystal Leww: “WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE” could have been released at any point during Marilyn Manson’s career, so long as you changed the technology referenced (here, drones) and it’d still be ‘relevant.’ The music also largely sounds the same, but I can’t imagine how much ‘innovation’ is available here in this space. Keep making stuff for the fans, I guess?
[4]
Jibril Yassin: For a man who’s built his name and game on shock and thrills, there’s something joyful in hearing Manson avoid the peril of sounding too familiar even if this is all a bit old hat.
[6]
Thomas Inskeep: Marilyn Manson (the band and the man — he’s just like Sade!) comes roaring back to life on this first single from their 10th (!) studio record, which brings to mind classic industrial-touched Manson, more mid-late ’90s than anything. In that case, this works to the song’s benefit, with its lyrics about surveillance and drones — and for that matter, even the ALL CAPS title makes a statement. Welcome back, man.
[8]
Ryo Miyauchi: The fear of the Others materializes into catchy metal, though it’s frankly hard to stomach. Not so much because of the shock factor; the wink that this is pop is in the title, stylized in all-caps. I passed off pop records like this in the past, with some understanding that this may not be a true reflection of Marilyn Manson’s person. The same can be said about this single. But more and more, the people who embrace this sort of aggression in music put forth on-record threats into real-life practice. Too many innocent lives get doxxed URL and removed by gunfire IRL to dismiss the responsibility of this pop record because the man and message of it is Not Real. Everything about this is out of touch, and it makes me queasy.
[4]