Are TGAOG, EMDM and THEOL underrated?

[Aint]

TGAOG is not underrated at all. It sold well and it seems people like it. I personally think it's not only Manson's worst album but a terrible album in general. It's the same boring guitar and beats throughout with little change. It's glossy, overproduced, and void of emotion. Every song is loud for the sake of being loud, so there's not really any dynamics. Just monotonous background music for me. It sounds the way people who have never heard Manson would think he sounds. Generic industrial metal sounding crap. I know I've already said most of this before but... yeah, it's relevant to topic.

This pretty much expressed my view on GAOG, so I won't rehash that.

Short answer: Yes, EMDM and THEOL are underrated records.

Longer answer:

EMDM is one of those albums where I needed to get to a certain point in my life to enjoy. Once I got to that point, I've loved the album ever since. I love it's atmosphere and sincerity. The album flows well and I don't feel that it drags or becomes redundant at any point (like GOAG does). The only song that I'm not totally in love with is "Mutilation..." I feel the song is a little out of place, but not all the time (sometimes it just feels right, it's hard to explain). The title track is one of Manson's best songs, period. It's an album that can certainly be a soundtrack to anyone's life, not just Manson's.

THEOL, technically, may not be as good EMDM, but I have far more emotion invested in it. What it loses for its lack of flow (especially in the middle of the album), it makes up for with its rawness. This is an album I get lost in. Without trying to sound overdramatic, it's an album that kept me going through the darkest time of my short life. The songs: "Devour," "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies," "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell," "Into the Fire," and "15" make the album for me. Those songs, coupled with the rest, make for an album experience that I haven't been able to duplicate since. IMO, the flaws make the record better. I don't think this is anywhere near his best record (although, it's far better than what the majority of fans would say), but it's the most important one (to me).

[Dronepool]

GAOG is really fun and a good album but many songs aren't that versatile in style.

EMDM is good, but some 'meh' songs and the vocals would sound better if they were mixed better and create a better overall album.

HEOL wasn't bad, it has a bunch of cool stuff and I actually love "We're From America" but I think you could probably make a great 80 minute CD if you combine the most popular and best tracks from EMDM and HEOL and just release the leftovers as B-side/outake album.

[thatrussianman]

S.D had a beautiful response and I think the best thing here is to simplify my thoughts for convenience sake:

TGAOG: Golden Age is very representative and Manson coming over the hump of Columbine. Hard, heavy, screamy, awesome. I am a big fan of songs like Better of two evils, because I never figured out until much later they were written to sound corny as Manson reflecting [The Death of Art]. Slutgarden is a-mazing.
The bad: Tim Skold should of at least picked up a different guitar once in a while. I also would have loved to hear more elements from the 20s-30s era manson was evoking in the music. And spade is a great song but the instrumental never really, REALLY hit me. My favorite line is "And we said...till we die... oh oh oh....."
(Oh, and the intro and outro songs or whatever are BS, don't really help with the mood, just there for ambiant but eh...)

EMDM: Great album, even though I put it below most of the other albums it doesn't mean I love it less. The lyrics on here are some of the most intriguing and meaningful, and some songs are just downright fun/catchy/awesome.
The bad: way way way WAYYY TOO FUCKING SHORT. But the time we get to "Are you the Rabbit?" you're like "Oh shit there's only 3 more songs left on this album" :(

THEOL: For the album that Manson said he was making, THEOL is NEAR perfect. I don't understand the criticism of it not being cohesive or not sounding raw enough, because the album was NOT a concept, and the triptych worshippers seem to forget that. The reason songs that sound like Four Rusted Horses and then WOW can appear on the same album is because Manson loves both those styles and they reflected the mood of the lyrics, which are fan-fucking-tastic.
The bad: Even though this was an decision made by Manson, the intros/outros to some of the tracks are just a little too long. And I have the longer version of Devour because it really deserved to be a full song (it's like he didn't know how to end it, but thankfully it transitions into Pretty..)

[thatrussianman]

Oh and as for Born Villain... better than them all. There is just something I FEEL about this album.

"I don't ever want God (the gardener) to hear our screams, and mistake them for prayers ..."

[kleiner352]

Golden Age: Not under but possibly over rated in my opinion. It's one of his most commercially successful albums (a big thank you to pabloccb for correcting me on that!), and yet I really don't think is representative of his work, at all. It's a little too showy, I would say; I understand that much of the "hollow" feel both in lyrics and sound is supposed to be making a statement about how art is becoming hollow and stale, but that doesn't make it any less evocative of feeling hollow and stale itself. It would have made more of a point if it had been an extremely strong, emotive, and rich album, which would have then contrasted against the more hollow mainstream art. In fact, that entire point was already made with Mechanical Animals and done so much better, with half the songs meant to feel empty and half full, providing that very contrast. It's a fun record, but that's where it ends for me. Like Atom said, it's what people who don't listen to Manson expect him to sound like.

EMDM is easily the most underrated album of his to me. I have a strong sentimental value to it, and it's his most human album. It really high lights the Man in Manson. We've seen him play the monster, and to see him play the person is very intimate. That's the best word for the album to me, is intimate. Many dislike that it feels like journal pages and love notes, but to me that makes it so much more personal and connecting on an intimate and emotional level. The title track is my favorite piece of work he's made. I think that Skold did a lovely job on the album, and musically it's one of the stronger albums (the instrumental disc they released that you can find on YouTube really showcases how good of a job he did writing the music). I think there are certainly moments of it lacking something, and Mutilation doesn't quite fit with the album (it's like how Starfuckers, Inc. didn't belong on NIN's the Fragile, exact same reason). I think that album has a real heart to it, and you can really feel both his heartbreak and romanticism. You see a side of him that the others hint at, and it makes me appreciate the other side more, since you can see where he comes from. It rounds out his work emotionally. I have a deep appreciation for the album, and I think it was Manson making the album he needed to. All of the interviews from that time show that, and he really seemed so proud of it. He really sounded like he was extremely happy with that album, and very very proud of the work he and Skold put into it; I think he was very discouraged that people hated it, and that he doesn't respond well to criticism, which has resulted in him not playing it at all and saying it wasn't a good album, when I think he himself quite loves it. Just my take. Not to mention that songs like Heart Shaped Glasses, Evidence, You and Me..., Are You the Rabbit, etc. all have this excellent "fuck me" rock and roll feel to it that I don't think enough fans seem to appreciate for what it is.

THEOL is a mixed bag. It doesn't deserve an award or anything, but it doesn't deserve to have the "fuck it it's awful I hope it never is mentioned again" hatred that so many fans throw at it. Here is my take: there are two halves to this album. The actual album, the one that suits the title and the one that is where Manson was really at creatively, the introspective, heartbroken side, and then the "everyone bitched EMDM was too personal so here are some old B-sides about politics and religion sucking even though I'm not passionate about these things right now in my life" half. The first half is the easily strongest of the two, and obviously the one Manson himself was wanting to make. Devour, Pretty as a Swastika, Leave a Scar, Four Rusted Horses, I Want to Kill You..., WOW, I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell, Into the Fire, all of those are damn good songs and they all compliment each other. (I'd put 15, Unkillable Monster and Wight Spider in that half as well but I really don't like those songs). The other half, the Blank and White, We're From America portion, is really bland and stale. That caused it to have this sense that it isn't an album, it's a bunch of songs that aren't related thrown together to get out of a record contract.

So yeah, that's my take on it all.

[Sans Agendum]

I like EMDM more than GAOG. GAOG has virtually no variety in it's mix. It's a weak album with maybe 2 tracks that stand out amongst the muddled cheesy metal riffs. Spade and the title track are really the only two songs worth listening to in my opinion. I think EMDM and THEOL are both great albums and don't understand the dislike so many fans have for them. I really like EMDM quite a bit. It's a focused album of more mid tempo Manson songs and has variety that is lacking severely on GAOG.

THEOL is also an amazing record with tons of variety and high points. A lot of the songs are quite different than what Manson is known for and trying new things has always been something I've loved about Manson's music. A lot of people just listen to Manson to scare their parents and neighbors though, so EMDM and THEOL are probably not their shallow cup of tea.

[blangsip]

I think all three are overatted because its hard for die-hard fans to admit the flaws found on them.

I think both MA and TGAOG are albums with style over substance. Songs here and there are decent or great but overall they failed as good albums in my opinion. Both the visuals and concepts are amazing but I feel like they needed more time and/or effort to at least make them good records.

That last three albums are okay and entertaining on some level. It's good mansons still putting out stuff.

[TMC]

The Golden Age of Grotesque is neither under- nor overrated, it's a good record, but comapred to three amazing albums that came out before it, it feels a bit mediocre. However there's plenty of great melodies and intriguing lyrics on it. Another thing that I love about the whole era was the image which I think was one of the best in Manson's career.

Personally I feel that Eat Me, Drink Me is much underrated, but it's probably becouse it's one of my favourite records so I can't understand people not liking it. Some lyrics are cheesy, there is at least one song that can pretend to the title of the worst ever written under the name Marilyn Manson (Heart-shaped Glasses), but overall the album has an amazing feeling.

The High End of Low is by far the only record by Manson that I don't really like and that I don't come back to. Separate tracks are not bad, some are even very good (Devour, Into the Fire, IWKYLTDITM); my biggest problem with this record is that it doesn't sound like a whole, more like a compillation of b-sides. It's both about the lyrics (there is absolutely no main theme on this record, some lyrics are probably the worst ever written by Manson) and the music.

[Iulian]

I know I'm alone here saying this: to me, EMDM is more than amazing. Musically, I think it's above the others (all 8). The shock value dies, so you only get the music. that's it, music. I love the solos, Skold did an amazing job with writing and producing it. You have strong lyrics; in my eyes, it's about feelings, not giving messages. I don't buy the "I wanted people to feel what I felt" like Manson said. It was soulful, something that I didn't get much until then.

GAOG, it has an amazing production. Stay in bed, turn off the tv, close the windows, if it's noise outside, put on the headphones and enjoy. Not melodic, but.. sharp? It has sharp edges all over it. An electronic middle finger in a 20s glove. I love most of this album.

THEOL, I think that the most songs I have right now on my mp3 player, from MM, are from this album. It grew on me a lot in the last year, actually what I don't like is Running to the edge of the world, Wight spider, I have to look up and the last 2-3 minutes of I want to kill you.

GAOG was nr 1, definitely not underrated. The other 2, yeah. And as a side note, except 2-3 songs, I don't like the last album at all.

[Cringeon]

I have to look at GAOG/EMDM as almost a different band than the MM that I connect with most. There's TwiggyMM and NonTwiggyMM. Something as simple as who writes the music really has the biggest impact with me. Never was huge into Portrait, and GAOG/EMDM lack something that never hooked me in. It's just my personal taste, but something about Skold's writing seems really flat. He's a great guitarist and excellent producer - but even with a ripping solo it doesn't feel passionate.

For GAOG, I think the theme and more daring tracks are overshadow by arena rock/jock rock anthems. So it feels really disconnected. Songs like Saint, Slutgarden, Spade, GAOG, Paranoir really are my favorites, but the other tracks just seem like generic rock. Replace the vocalist and you'd have no idea it was suppose to be MM. EMDM, it's just rooted in a more classic rock style that I'm not into. Really big ballady, long solos. Part I'd say is Skold's more 80s rock influence. There are some good songs on the album, but it doesn't feel like Marilyn Manson to me.

As for THEOL, I was really glad to hear Twiggy come back, but overtime the album didn't stand up just due to it feeling more like a collection of songs and not something as a whole. What I did appreciate is Twiggy taking his influence from being outside of MM and injecting it in the song writing. HW and MA where very heavyhanded production wise, and from interviews it sounds like MM and Twiggy now really only care about attitude and energy so it's less overthought production wise. I know some people miss the older production style, but I dig it.