siLLy puPPy These rabble-rousers hit the world with a vengeance pissing off everyone from the prudish elite and Christian right to the music community itself with endless debates about if they were metal or not. Also engaging in controversial antics on and off stage that got them banned and persecuted but certainly not ignored! In fact none other than Mr. Trent Reznor caught their show and saw a quality act that he took on making this debut album a major hit in the production department as well as with the totally catchy over-the-top pop metal tunes that also score highly in the vitriolic lyrical department. Despite shortening their name to simply MARILYN MANSON, album #1 finds them with the same initial line-up that went under the name Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids prior to being signed to Reznor's Nothing Records label.

MANSON really knew how to borrow a little here and a bit from there to create a totally new yet somewhat familiar concoction that really struck a chord in dysfunctional America, the subject of his scorn that would peak on the following album. After many years I have decided to dust off my MANSON albums and see if they held up after all this time and I have to give a gleeful affirmative for an answer. This debut album just plain rocks like few others did at the time. Tracks like “Cake And Sodomy” and “Dope Hat” are just amazing and achieved the foulest of poetic expression accompanied by somewhat simple yet distinct metal instrumentation. Although I hear influences ranging from W.A.S.P. To Jane's Addiction in the mix, MANSON did a great job to keep the influences toned down and dressed up in their own outrageous regalia. I find I still love this album as much as I did the first time I heard it and only a couple lesser tracks keep me from giving this a full 5 star rating.

Warthur This is going to do little for my credibility as a reviewer, but I'm going to say it anyway: Marilyn Manson's debut album is a damn catchy one, a slice of pop-industrial metal which pulls off the trick of making a fairly uncommercial flavour of music come across nice and hooky.

Sure, the whole shock rock thing might have been old hat by the time this came out, and sure, it might not be particularly serious or experimental or groundbreaking - but it is infectiously, wonderfully catchy, a fun little album which I can't help bopping my head to when the best tracks (Dope Hat, Organ Grinder, etc. come on) every time I listen to it with songs that get stuck in my head all day after I've heard them.

Manson might be at best a polarising figure, at worst a pathetic and contemptible one. Even if you can set aside the recent abuse allegations - and I don't blame anyone who finds that they can't - the fact remains that Manson is a deeply pretentious man who poses as a serious artist when in fact he's best at turning out slightly disposable schlock.

Take this as an example: this isn't a grand artistic statement, it's accessible, danceable, fun times pop-metal with a grimy industrial veneer set against some snotty lyrics. And if you approach the album with that in mind, I think you'll have a good time with it... if, that is, you are able to pull the whole "separate the art from the artist" trick. For my part, it's hard to regard Manson's music as meaningless, poppy fun these days. There's plenty of gothy industrial-pop out there which doesn't carry the same baggage.