Pink Floyd - Animals (1977)
1) Pigs on the Wing (Part 1)
2) Dogs
3) Pigs (Three Different Ones)
4) Sheep
5) Pigs on the Wing (Part 2)
I reckon pretty much everyone is familiar with this, so I try not to blabber. The concept is rather loose, based on Orwell's novel Animal Farm. This album has the littlest number of tracks (Pigs on the Wings aren't really songs, just an epilogue and a prologue) on my list.
The three songs in the middle are rather epic, all clocking up over 10 minutes. And like on the previous album, Wish You Were Here, music is pretty calm, with exception of hard rocking Sheep. The guitar work is exceptional, I especially love the melodic twin-guitar solo on Dogs.
And I'd like to point one thing out. 1977 is usually considered as a birth year of punk rock. I think some of it was rubbed on off Pink Floyd too, since in Pigs (Three Different Ones) the band mocks a back-then British Member of Parliament Mary Whitehouse. What's more punk than calling a prominent politician a pig?
Favourite tracks: Dogs, Sheep
Where'd I place it?: 25-35
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Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar (1996)
Cycle I: The Heirophant
1) Irresponsible Hate Anthem
2) The Beautiful People
3) Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World
4) Tourniquet
Cycle II: Inauguration of the Worm
5) Little Horn
6) Cryptorchid
7) Deformography
8) Wormboy
9) Mister Superstar
10) Angel with the Scabbed Wings
11) Kinderfeld
Cycle III: Disintegrator Rising
12) Antichrist Superstar
13) 1996
14) Minute of Decay
15) The Reflecting God
16) Man That You Fear
99) Empty Sounds of Hate
I used to think Marilyn Manson was a screaming Satanist. How wrong was I?
One of my friends is a huge fan, and she’s tried to make me one, but actually I decided to try him out by myself. Or actually them, because Marilyn Manson is a whole band, not Brian Hugh Warner’s solo project. It just carries out his name. Anyway, I found out two things that made me interested. First of all, it is an concept album. And the second, it is co-produced by Trent Reznor, he has some writing credits, and he plays mellotron, guitar and Rhodes piano on some tracks. If Trent likes it, it cannot be bad.
And he didn’t let me down. The album is a part of trilogy of concept albums, chronologically the first, but story-wise the last. Again, the concept is rather loose, and lyrically this album isn’t in the same league with the following Mechanical Animals and Holy Wood (In the Valley of the Shadow of Death). But the music.
The album is HEAVY. Screeching guitars. Banging drums. Mechanical loops and noises. Distortion is a key element. There is a real sense of danger. And Manson’s vocals, ranging from low whispers to high and heavy screaming doesn’t make it any more comfortable. Heavy break-neck tracks like Irresponsible Hate Anthem (which is, according to liner notes recorded live in February 1997), Angel with the Scabbed Wings and 1996 have company of slower and ballad-like, yet dark material, such as Cryptorchid, Minute of Decay and the chilling Kinderfeld. I think The Beautiful People is a quintessential Marilyn Manson song and a prime example of what this album is about. If you don’t like it, then you aren’t likely to like anything else in the album.
Of course the album raised great controversy, especially among the deeply religious and the right-wing. But they sometimes need a little shaking, don’t they? Anyways, the album isn’t Satanic at all, and not that much religious either. It is mostly Nietzschean, according to Manson himself.
Favourite tracks: The Beautiful People, Cryptorchid, Mister Superstar, Angel with the Scabbed Wings, Kinderfeld, Antichrist Superstar, Man That You Fear
Where'd I place it?: 10-20
Topic: Ruba's Top 50 albums! v. Finished! (Read 11360 times)
