Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson

Oooh, brand new Linkin Park and Marilyn Manson albums. Legit head-to-head cage matches are so rare these days, what's the pre-fight stat sheet give us?

Both bands i stopped caring about as 1999 wound to a grinding halt (you know with all the computers about to think it was 1900), so that's no help. I'm sure they're both canceled or whatever, so we're even. Kinda surprised Linkin Park has the grosser album cover (not remotely unreminiscent of Metallica's Load/Reload). Manson just has a painting of what most people look like without properly organized health care. What I've heard of Emily-fronted LP has been quite lovely, what I've heard of MM over the last 20-something years is an equally lovely nothing, so yeah we're just wading into the terrifying tunnel of hyperbolic sadness. Hope there's not a trolly problem waiting for us at the end, but [hold on, let me mix these metaphors real quick...ok] we'll cross that bridge when we're tied to it.

I don't want to argue too much, but the concept of From Zero is "hey everybody, you know how we used to be Linkin Park? Well, we're still Linkin Park, but a new, slightly different Linkin Park, so please consider listening to this album as though it's a fresh start. We know it's weird and uncomfortable for everyone, but we have a new singer and drummer, and we want to give them a fair shake without completely abandoning our back catalog or playing State Fairs for the next 20 years." I'm cool with that. If absolutely nothing else, it's honest. But, Emptiness Machine and Heavy Is The Crown are pretty good (and thematically apropos) singles, so 9 more chances to royally screw it up. 

Not an ugly record, but i don't like squinting or holding the runout under strong light to figure out which side is which. Like it or not, you gotta use a big letter or number or something. Anywho, now for the actual album.

From Zero? Like, from nothing? Oh wait, your fi.... they were originally called Xero. The intro encapsulates the concept, and the lead-off single is a total banger once you get past reusing the melody from The Final Masquerade. Nice segue to a bit of a let down. Cut The Bridge has potential, but Mike's a better rapper than this, and Emily's chorus is way too clenched and clipped for the Pop Punk ethos they're clearly trying to achieve. There we go, Heavy Is The Crown is much better. And that scream on the drop is just delicious.

Da fuq? You're gonna end Side A with Hardcore Emily and Helmet Mike? I'm not mad, I don't hate it, it's such a shock to the system. I could say a lot more, but we'll just listen to Side B and see where that gets us.

K, so normally I'd be critical of the bipolar, random crap, throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks approach, but that's the actual concept and they take full advantage of it. It's an experimental album, and they totally succeed at experimenting. Like it or hate it, it's a legitimately fantastic album. So here's what works and what doesn't:

The harder they go, the more Emily shines. Mike singing is definitely better than Mike rapping badly, but nobody really wants or deserves anything less than Mike good rapping. Just because you CAN Katy Perry like you're Ke$ha doesn't mean you should. Never ever make Mr. Hahn unhappy. None of this works without him manning the electromagnets.

Now the difficult conversation. You're going to react to this album in one of two ways. Either you're gonna be like "[shrug] I dunno, it's pretty good, I can get into it, I just wish they were more stylistically consistent," or you're going to hear this album very specifically as Emily's response to Chester and piss your pants trying to contain all that toxic incel testosterone rage your court-ordered therapist said was unhealthy. I can't stop you from interpreting it that way, it's totally capable of being interpreted that way, all I can do is pull out my terrible David Foster Wallace impression and point out that you have the ability to choose how you feel. I don't mean delude yourself into thinking "this is fine" while your house is on fire, I mean getting up and leaving the burning house and calling your insurance agent to make a viable plan for starting over. The universe isn't out to make you personally suffer, and Linkin Park isn't out to make everybody not buy their next album. I hope the next album leans to the harder side, but that's a personal preference; they do everything well except Cut The Bridge. The song itself is just too claustrophobically awkward, and honestly feels like Devo could cover it to much better success.

All in all, though, I'm gonna have to give the album two thumbsJESUS CHRIST DON'T SNEAK UP ON ME LIKE THAT! 

Are you going to the Halloween party as Billy Howerdale? Oh no, you're planning more chapters? Damnit, Marilyn, just because the through the looking glass crazy christ crusaders got Trump reelected, doesn't mean i need a new album of whatever bizarre and horrible things you're about to scream/croak-whisper at me! No, no, it's release day, fair's fair, i just wanna make it clear that if you're about to Mechanical Animals at me, I'm gonna be not happy. I know it looks like on paper if should love your Memento pastiche in the form of 3 chronologically backward concept albums, but I don't think anybody needed you to flesh out the Ziggy Stardust plot to understand Antichrist Superstar. We got it.

But ok, whatever this macabre Jesus thing is going to be, i promise I'll give it a fair listen. Just stop staring at me like that, and absolutely no promises on chapter 2 when/if it comes out.

Another pretty record, and amazingly enough, there's a cursive a and b on the labels. That'll do, Pig. That'll do.

I don't really have much to say. It's fine. It's a dark Rock & Roll album they way Marilyn Manson does it. You might expect it to be about Satan, but it's not, it's about Nega-Jesus, and he's kinda bitter about you calling his assassination a "sacrifice."

The problem I have with MM is that you can't really call his music anything but Industrial-Goth Rock, but he consistently fails to do any of those genres justice, and this album in particular slides a slippery slope into cheesy synth pop. I don't have any reservation about calling it a great album, but I do have reservations about expanding it. The story doesn't need it, it's completely self contained and coherent. Granted it's the same story as every Marilyn Manson album, which is to say it's no different from most any David Bowie album; they're all variations on the psychology of an idolized messiah figure. It's good. I enjoyed listening to it. Nothing about the character or his musical portrayal is illogical or silly, but it's also not exactly in your face repugnant either. Again I'll point out you aren't required to feel this way about whatever situation you find yourself in, you're not Nega-Jesus being forcibly martyred into telemarketing or construction work. At a certain point you kind of have to call bullshit on every single famous rock star being a "victim of exploitation." Right, like nobody's tying you down and pointing a leaf blower full of cocaine at your face. You could in theory have a glass of water rather than 4 liters of whiskey. Nobody's required to like you when you're being a jerk.

Just like Linkin Park, though, you aren't required to put on your pseudo-musicologist hat and loudly proclaim the work is always autobiographical. Brian and his management team are no doubt horribly unscrupulous business racketeers who lost/settled a lot of court cases for a reason, but that doesn't mean he actually feels the way the story unfolds on the album. And even if he did, I have to point out he's not saying he's the good guy. Quite the opposite. Unfortunately, in this case, if the goal is shock and social upheaval, I don't think One Assassination Under God is gonna do it. It's good as a piece of art, but it's not particularly exciting or revelatory as a piece of mass-media. Real life is way more terrifying than Marilyn Manson expressing the very familiar psycho-mythology of narcissistic self-victimization. I hear this kind of ego-centric garbage spoken non-artistically every day by people who desperately want me to agree with them so they can feel validated. This album's meta-ironic perspective is difficult to grasp in today's world, because it only works if you unthinkingly play its game and prove it right by being outraged.

But are you? Do you listen to the whole album and feel anything other than pity when you get to Sacrafice Of The Mass? Not empathy, but pity, and a deep sadness that you can't do anything to help. It might take the sarcastic form of "jeez, quit being such a crybaby," but that's almost giving it too much credit.

It won't make you think any more deeply than you already did, it's not exactly exciting or scary (honestly any I Prevail album is way more believably terrifying than Marilyn Manson), and there's this weird tendency in the US to consider Democrat/Republican equal to Right/Left when the Democrats are mostly a centrist/classically liberal party. US media and politics has virtually no understanding of global Left, and voters overwhelmingly confuse their own leftist opinions to be represented by the extreme Right. But I digress. The point is that Marilyn Manson is sing-screaming horror stories at you. He's describing terrible things that bad people do under the indemnity claue of religious/political relativism. I have no idea if he's a good or bad person in real life.

Regardless, who won? Well, they're both pretty good albums, but they're kind of polar opposites. LP is coming from a new place and seeing where the future takes them, MM is dwelling on his impending doom. LP is controversial by trying not to be, MM is not really controversial at all for a change. From Zero is legitimately more shocking than OAUG, and the hardcore fans of both bands probably won't like either. It's a draw. They're both excellent examples of what they intend to be, both listenable in their respective contexts, and both total anachronisms here in late 2024.

I suppose if I absolutely have to pick a winner, it'll come down to the electronics. Linkin Park wins hands down in that regard, MM's synths and programming are borderline cheesy.