Marilyn Manson - Portrait of an American Family (1994)

    As the world seemed to speed up and turned more violent since the '80s, the common ways of entertaining became more exaggerated too. The mainstream metal scene also felt the need of some update and scandalous backup. The debut of Marilyn Manson meant a new kind of shock rock therapy for the metal audience.
   Their concept was very complex, based on social criticism by flashing onto the paradoxes that are coexisting together in the American society. Religious obsesson and perversions, conservative values and abortion, sex symbols and serial killers, drug abuse, pornography and entertainment industry, Christian cults and satanism just to mention some pairings that are continously referring back to the triangle of fear, sex and violence. And the whole thing had sarcastic, ironic performance that wasn't completely clear for everyone, so for people who had lack of common sense, or felt insulted by discovering themselves in the lyrics, Marilyn Manson was the new boogie man. For the band the concept seemed to be always more important than the music, so diversity and musical maximalism was never their strongest point. "Portait of an American Family" was a twisted mix of the that time conquering grunge and industrial metal waves. The support of Trent Reznor formed a lot on their musical progress. However the band was able to get the attetion they were looking for. And Mr. Manson could have call himself lucky too, because his huge audience seemed to be well updated in societal problems and competent enough to understand the complex concept he created, not only fascinated by his visual appearence and performance.
Yeah, that was sarcasm too...