Golden Age of Grotesque

UK special edition of the shock rocker's eagerly anticipated 2003 album includes two bonus tracks, 'Tainted Love' & 'Baboon Rape Party'. 17 tracks. Nothing/Interscope.

The Golden Age of Grotesque was inspired by the seamy underside of Weimar Berlin, circa 1930. The album is constructed along the lines of Alice Cooper's 1975 gem, Welcome to My Nightmare, dipping in to the same cabaret of Cooper's "Some Folks." Unlike Cooper, however, this is no comic nightmare. "This isn't a show / This is my f*cking life / I'm not ashamed / You're entertained," Manson snarls in "Vodevil," making it abundantly clear that the singer was born in the wrong time and place and is more at home among the absinthe-drinking revelers in pre-Nazi Germany. The album possesses a dark, accessible beauty rather than the twisted industrial dissonance that pervades much of his earlier stuff. "mOBSCENE" is a thumping rocker that features a deranged cheerleading squad. "Ka-Boom Ka-Boom" is a rousing stomper that Manson penned in response to an exec's complaint that the new songs didn't rock. Its simple yet seditious chorus decries, "I like a big car, 'cause I'm a big star / I'll make a big rock & roll hit." Since 1998's Mechanical Animals, Manson's albums have become progressively more tuneful, and Grotesque continues the trend. --Jaan Uhelszki