Eat Me, Drink Me (2007)
Up until this point Marilyn Manson had always functioned as a full band (albeit nearly a revolving door one), but for the recording of this album, the "band" was down to two people: Manson himself and Tim Skold. The collaboration process entailed Skold writing and recording instrumentals, which Manson would come up with lyrics and vocal melodies for, and they also produced the album together.
Skold may have had less to do with the sound of The Golden Age Of Groteque than I thought, because there's very little synthesizer here, and this actually might be their least "industrial metal" album ever. Skold and Manson are working in more of a Goth Rock style here: Manson is mainly singing in his croaky lower register, the tempos are generally very slow, the drum machines and bass are pretty sparse, and Skold's lead guitar style seems mainly about texture, although he does also take a few somewhat flashy solos. At best, they do achieve the relentlessly bleak feel they're aiming for, and there are some surprisingly mature, personal moments you couldn't really get across with a more typical Manson sound.
Unfortunately, what tends to drag it down is the fact that it sounds so much like an album entirely written, played and produced by two people. I've come to like this band, but I have to admit a lot of what makes their albums appealing as a whole is production trickery. So when an album is this minimally produced and slowly paced, things start to drag and the songs sort of start to sound the same. It doesn't help that the album opens with "If I Was Your Vampire", a particularly slow-paced 6 minute song with two fake out fade outs. The song basically exemplifies what makes the album a frustrating listen on the whole: It starts out dramatically enough, and there are a few interesting ideas, but it soon becomes apparent it's never going to stop moving at that dirgelike tempo and it just. won't. end. This might be one of the few Marilyn Manson albums to clock in at under an hour, but it sure doesn't feel like it.
There are a few standouts though - "Heart-Shaped Glasses" and "Putting Holes In Happiness" are catchier than the surrounding material and have just a hint of new wave to them, and if the title track is an attempt to channel Joy Division, it's actually a pretty successful one. On the whole though, I'm going to chalk this up as a failed experiment; Which is disappointing, because in the past the band has shown an ability to pull off more moody, relatively subtle material.
Key Tracks: Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand), Putting Holes In Happiness, Eat Me, Drink Me
Heart-Shaped Glasses (When The Heart Guides The Hand) (2007)
The album version and "radio edit" of the title track (which basically just lops off the last minute and a half of the song), plus a "Heart Shaped Glasses" remix and an acoustic version of "Putting Holes In Happiness".
The "Penetrate The Canvas" mix of "Heart Shaped Glasses" is a bit more subtle than most of the band's remixes, but it's still significantly different: There's some added percussion, but it otherwise uses the original instrumentation in different combinations than the original did. Using some of the instrumentation from the song's bridge for the verses actually works pretty well, as it serves to make the mostly unaltered chorus sections hit harder by comparison. It also emphasizes some nice background synth parts I didn't notice were in the original until I compared them.
The real highlight is the acoustic rendition of "Putting Holes In Happiness" though. The arrangement really helps to bring out the chorus melody, there's the interesting touch of adding glockenspiel and accordion, and it's very cool to hear the shredding guitar solo of the original played slide guitar style.
Key Tracks: Putting Holes In Happiness (Acoustic Version)
Putting Holes In Happiness (2007)
I'm actually somewhat surprised that this didn't fare particularly well as a single - it's definitely one of the catchier tunes from the latter half of their career, and it's goth-lite / new wave trappings even make it slightly in line with some of what was being played on rock radio at the time (She Wants Revenge's "Tear You Apart" for instance). It seems that after 2000 they couldn't get much in the way of radio play unless they were doing covers of eighties songs * . Oh, and I guess now is as good a time as any to point out my mondegreen for this song: "You're like a bidet". I was kind of disappointed when I found out it's actually "you're like a birthday", since comparing an ex-girlfriend to a bidet seems much more Manson-like somehow.
Anyway, we've got a radio edit * and two remixes of the title track. The first remix is by Boys Noize - I'm not familiar with his own work, but this remix indicates it's sort of in the same loud, rock-friendly club music vein as Justice. I sort of wish it would have included more elements of the original than often very chopped-up vocals, but it does work well taken as it's own thing, and it's got enough melodic elements in common with the original song to not just seem like he just pulled an Aphex Twin and called a completely unrelated outtake a "remix". Nick Zinner's remix is a bit less successful: It builds a nice dance groove around fragments of the original recording's guitar solo, but quickly grows much too repetitive.
Key Tracks: Putting Holes In Happiness (Boys Noize Mix)
