This record, sadly, has the accolade of being the first 12" record I owned. I'd started my vinyl addiction with the very reputable Motorcycle Emptiness 7" single (a record which was truly a turning point in my life), but then I ruined it all by buying a Marilyn Manson 12" picture disc. It was 2001; what else can I say.
My sister got me into Marilyn Manson. She introduced me to three bands - Deftones, Silverchair and Marilyn Manson. On a holiday to the states when we were younger, she bought a bunch of cds by them and a short while later I ended up buying them from her. One of them was Antichrist Superstar, Manson's peak (or so I assume, it was certainly a local-peak, if not global); she also had The Last Tour of Earth (a live album from just after Mechanical Animals) and Portrait of an American Family (his simpler, industrial beginnings - I've long thought the actual songs on there might have aged better than the concept albums that followed - I've not listened to check).
In 2000, he released Holywood, the third in his loosely-related trilogy (which played out in reverse order, so felt a bit like an after-thought). Being the year 2000, this was exciting news, so I rushed out to buy a copy the day it came out. I remember enjoying the album, but finding it far too long. I liked that it was heavier than Mechanical Animals, but it lacked the real highs that Antichrist Superstar had. It would be the last Marilyn Manson album I'd buy - by the summer of 2001, the charm had worn off and I remember being really disappointed by his performance at Reading Festival; a year earlier and I would have loved it, but as it was, I just remember too many outfit changes and a stage show that felt like it was compensating for the music. It was an odd crowd too, given the very nu-metal start to the day and the fact that Eninem was headlining. 2001 was a strange time. (He also released a cover Sweet Dreams, a song I hated with a passion. That didn't help.)
However, in early 2001 I was still into his music, and when I found this 12" picture disc in Tower Records in Southampton, it was hard to resist. I was young and the prospect of a "Slipknot remix" was far more appealing than the adult-me knows it to be. Plus, I hadn't seen many picture discs and was into the idea of them (years later I'd realise why they were always the shittiest sounding of my records). The a-side is surprisingly fun still. Stupid also, obviously, but he did know how to make a heavy pop song (much like his on-and-off friend, Trent). The Slipknot remix never did much for me, but then again rock remixes rarely do; it feels like a cluttered, less enjoyable version of the song. There's also a remix of The Love Song, which is much more twisted from the original (or how I remember the original being). It's certainly not a record that I consider highly in my collection, but I guess as a representation of a time and a place, it's nice to have.
Like many people, I went a great number of years without listening to Marilyn Manson – why would I? I didn't check out any of his albums post-Holywood and wasn't ever that aware of what he was up to. Then, in 2015, I was in San Francisco with work on the same week that the Smashing Pumpkins and Marilyn Manson tour was passing through town (or, at least, the bowl in Concord, a very suburban district about an hour out of SF). By even better coincidence, the night of the show was the only night when there weren't work social plans, so I had to go. I listened to a few MM songs on my iPod on the flight over (although, for reasons unknown, only a few songs had made it onto the device) and enjoyed them more than I expected. I suspect it was 100% nostalgia – they're not good songs, but I did listen to them a lot in my teens.
Anyway, the show was strange – almost entirely seated with pricing bands of seating meaning that there were empty seats at the back of each section (because it wasn't sold out). Additionally, Manson played in the light, which just doesn't work and a load of people who were there to see him left before the Pumpkins, meaning it was even emptier. Billy Corgan played a few bars of the American national anthem and some guy yelled at me for not standing up – the irony of the fact he'd sat through Marilyn Manson's set with an upside down US flag on the stage wasn't lost on me. Manson played some songs I knew, which was nice, and a lot I didn't. It was similar to that Reading show in some ways, particularly in that it felt like more stage-show than substance. Also, he looked old, which really makes it even harder to take him seriously. But I wonder if we were never supposed to?
Format: 12", picture dsic
Tracks: 3
Cost: £4 new
Bought: Tower Records, Southampton
When: 01/03/01
Colour: Picture disc
Etching: none
mp3s: no
