Marilyn Manson Album: “Eat Me, Drink Me”

I love Marilyn Manson and I have a great deal of respect for his views and his music. However, ......he has been kinda flakey as of late. First off, his lyrics are not quite up to speed on this record. Anybody who has a brain knows that Marilyn Manson writes the best lyrics in rock music today. Sadly, there is nothing great about the lyrics on this album. The most annoying aspect of this CD is the stale plain sound of many of the songs. Also, the theme is bland...Basicly Manson wrote an entire album about crap like getting a devorce from Dita Von Teese and How that stupid band (MCR) stold his act. Sheesh...come the hell on Mr. Manson!!!! I miss the days of Antichrist Superstar. I wish that Manson and Trent Reznor were still making records together, still on tour together, ....since those days have passed, Manson hasn't done anything that is as much fun to be apart of. Anyways, I like three songs ("Evidence", "Heart Shaped Glasses", "If I Was Your Vampire") on this album, but all in all I think it is by far the least interresting album Manson has ever made. I shure hope his movie is going to be better than this album. Oh well...Marilyn Manson is still one of the greatest entertainers alive today regardless of a few recent flops.

I have been a fan of MM since '98 and I have to say that this album is a real let down. Almost every single song has a long guitar solo at almost the exact place every time, and some songs even sound similar to another before it! Out of the entire album, only about two or three songs really stood out as ok, nothing really blew me away.

I'll give him points for his style change, which sounds like a record from the 70s, sadly however, most of the songs are just boring. I have liked all of his past records, Mechanical Animals is what made me a fan, but I just didn't care for "Eat Me, Drink Me" at all. Hopefully, the next CD will be better

I am as big a Marilyn Manson fan as any. I own all 10 major releases and even have some singles. I've listened to them for years and never get tired of them. I waited all year for this album to come out, but now that it's here am I disappointed? Yes, but did I enjoy it? Yes again.

I noticed he doesn't scream much on this album, he croones making every song mid tempo, which to me is not a problem. I'm sure years of screaming has hurt his voice a lot so he wants to get away from that. But what of the songs themselves? Do they hold up to Manson's past? I think not, this is pretty much no better than Golden Age of Grotesque.

One problem is the lyrics, which are about heartbreak and personal pain and so on. If an artist wants to be introspective, you can't just call him an emo. That doesn't make any sense, Manson is hard rock/metal/industrial and so on but not emo. However, these lyrics do seem adolescent to me, not to mention some of the song titles themselves such as "You and Me and the Devil Makes Three" and "They Said That Hell's Not Hot", I don't understand why he would name songs that way. It seems so juvenile to me.

Next, the production is far from impressive. If Manson and Tim Skold wanted to produce this and have Sean Beavan mix it, they should have at least added Sean onto the team as co-producer and engineer. Sean Beavan did that kind of work for every Manson album until Holywood, he would have been the right person for the job. Yet Manson trusted Tim Skold to do all that and truth be told, Tim Skold is a very mediocre musician and songwriter.

Tim Skold had the nerve to play every instrument and do all the programming, but guess what Tim? Your guitar playing couldn't hope to ever match John 5 who could play any of your solos while sleeping, you're not as good a bassist or songwriter as Twiggy, your programming isn't as good as Ginger actually playing drums, and you don't even try to fill the absent Pogo's shoes because there isn't all that much keyboard music on this album.

In addition, Manson talks about Tim Skold as "the guitar God Marilyn Manson always needed", calling these songs "The most guitar oriented songs we've ever written". This is a shameless lie on Manson's part, in fact Marilyn Manson haven't been half as guitar oriented since Daisy left the band. Think about it people, what are the most guitar dynamic Marilyn Manson songs. How about Cake and Sodomy, Dogma, Sweet Dreams, Irresponsible Hate Anthem, stuff like that right? That's what you call guitar based rock, Tim Skold doesn't have half of Daisy's guitar playing creativity, or at least he doesn't show it.

However, there are some songs that are genuine Marilyn Manson songs on here. If I was your Vampire, Putting holes in happiness, Red Carpet Grave, Evidence, Mutilation is the most sincere form of flattery, and Eat Me, Drink Me all sound like Marilyn Manson to me. The songs I haven't listed are below par and only are brought up not by Skold's lame music but by Manson himself h=with his melowdrama he uses so woderfully.

There will never be a Marilyn Manson song I hate, he doesn't know how to write a terrible song, but some of this stuff is just below his potential. Hopefully on his next album he'll try working with some new collaborators, like maybe Chris Vrenna who is now in the band. Pogo won't come back because of the lawsuit so those days are gone. Maybe the new bassist will have some ideas. But for God's sake Manson needs to get away from Tim Skold, I dislike everything about that guy.

My least favorite from M.M. I do still listen to it, but I do not enjoy it as much as earlier albums.

I've been thinking this over for a while now. I won't bore you with the obvious: Manson changes his musical style every...yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. So what is the aesthetic theme behind this record?

After successive listens, it dawned on me that this album reads like a Psychedelic bluesy vampiric Spaghetti Western meets Alice in Wonderland filled with large flickering neon signs (probably of crucifixes above churches) littering the landscape. I get the sense he now fancies himself as a psychedelic Glam Rock outlaw cowboy roaming the dusty, desolate badlands of Hollywood, wrangling for himself (and subsequently breaking the hearts of) some dainty and not-so-dainty missus and ma'am's and harlots and young naive teenage actresses (which he is doing).

It certainly seems the case with songs like "Putting Holes in Happiness" and "Are you the Rabbit?". Even "They Said Hell's Not Hot" sounds like, dare I say it, 80's era Bon Jovi (Slippery When Wet?). There's also a very movie atmosphere running throughout this work and it wouldn't surprise me if the recent events of his life catalogued by this album began somewhere around the time he made a cameo in the vamp flick "Rise".

Anyway, these are just my $0.02 which I hope would aid in figuring out how to approach and define this album.