There’s something quaint, in retrospect, about how Marilyn Manson’s early albums were once considered so dangerous they were blamed for the Columbine High School massacre—as if one man smearing on eyeliner and screaming about the antichrist could alone move a couple of teenagers to deadly violence. Manson made for a convenient scapegoat in 1999. Given how sunny the rest of the country looked on the surface, he stood out like an infected sore on a CoverGirl model, embracing nihilism and evil, cutting himself onstage, baiting transphobes with his drag performance as effortlessly as he baited Christians with his purported cahoots with the devil. Twenty years on, it’s easier to see that Manson was merely processing the same cultural toxicity that might have moved Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, not encouraging it and certainly not engendering it. In some ways, he’s a herald of the nightmare we’re in now, the original American edgelord, the man whose rumored surgically-enabled autofellatio dominated lunchroom conversations in elementary schools across the country.
On Heaven Upside Down, his 10th album, Manson embraces the tropes that made him a menace and a rock star and a stalwart of goth. Songs called “SAY10” and “JE$U$ CRI$I$” sound like someone making fun of witch house band Salem—it’s telling that, in 2017, Manson doesn’t come off like a parody of himself but of his musical descendants. Unlike 2015’s The Pale Emperor, which had buckets of bass-heavy glam rock decadence coursing through its veins, Heaven Upside Down adopts a serrated industrial tone more reminiscent of 1998’s Mechanical Animals, with a smattering of juicy guitar licks that harken back to Manson’s 1994 debut Portrait of an American Family. A tinny ‘90s guitar tone powers “WE KNOW WHERE YOU FUCKING LIVE,” whose chorus, naturally, comprises Manson screaming the title twice over a power chord riff. “KILL4ME” similarly sees him asking his lover for a blood pact as eagerly as a blue-balled teen might beg for a first handjob. If nothing else, the God of Fuck is reliable.
That’s not to say there aren’t grooves here. While the lyrics to “Tattooed in Reverse” might trot out clumsily—it starts with “fuck your bible” and then Manson rhymes “showhorse” with “of course” right after making a “stable” pun—the song boasts a chorus as catchy as anything since “The Dope Show.” “Blood Honey,” meanwhile, is a visceral ode to kink that, like good sex, saves its most explosive moments for last. Even “SAY10,” with its absurd refrain of “You say God, I say Satan” that echoes nothing so much as Cake’s “Sheep Go to Heaven,” kicks hard enough to keep the Halloween party going. After all, the only reason anyone ever panicked about this guy is that he had a good enough grasp on pop to sneak his satanic earworms into the brains of the youth. No one would care if he couldn’t write hooks, and hooks he’s still got—dressed up, as ever, like the Babadook at a wine party.
Many of these songs rehash some of Manson’s earlier and even recent musical ideas. “Saturnalia” begins with a vocal riff almost indistinguishable from the hummed pre-chorus to Pale Emperor standout “Third Day of a Seven Day Binge,” while “KILL4ME” courses atop the Gary Glitter stomp-clap that’s boned up plenty of his songs over the years. But Manson has always seemed most comfortable deeply within the confines of his genre, repetitive as he may have become. This is his turf, and rather than expand it, he seeks to defend it, to reiterate his idiosyncratic spot in popular culture so no one forgets it’s his.
The shock value of his work long worn off, Manson now occupies a curiously nostalgic space among rock lifers. To listen to his albums is to indulge the same impulse that’s tacked “666” to the end of so many Twitter handles. It’s a gesture of affection for the kid you used to be, back when the number of the beast (or the weed number or the sex number) held the power to freak out your parents, your classmates, your teachers. It’s funny now because of how serious it once seemed. In 2017, the open horror of the world easily eclipses anything Manson’s recorded in years. Whatever value his music still holds derives from what you remember of him, and how sweet the memory of your thrill or disgust now rings.
