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"Marilyn-Manson" CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review: Not only is The Nightmare Before Christmas one of the best musicals of the past two decades; it may well be Danny Elfman's masterpiece, successfully integrating his main influences (from Cab Calloway to Nino Rota) into a fantastic whole. The first disc of this reissue features the original soundtrack, its songs still teetering between dark humor and poetic flights of fancy; this so-called kids' music is at least as sophisticated and skilled as anything you're likely to hear on Broadway. The second disc includes demo versions of four songs on which Elfman plays and sings everything, and five new covers of some of Nightmare's best-loved songs. Marilyn Manson successfully applies his spooky Weimar-circus style on "This Is Halloween" while Panic! At the Disco's lushly orchestrated take on the same tune is closer to the original. Fiona Apple's poignant "Sally's Song" is enhanced by very nice string charts, and She Wants Revenge does a disco take on "Kidnap the Sandy Claws." Best perhaps is Fall Out Boy's cover of "What's This?" which sounds like an unexpected cross between the Beach Boys and Queen. A highly recommended set. --Elisabeth Vincentelli

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Danny Elfman CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review: Culled from the band’s ten year, six album career, Lest we Forget: The Best of Marilyn Manson features some of the greatest rock anthems of the last decade. Opening with "The Love Song" from Holy Wood, it proceeds to the first of a handful of cover songs which have made it as singles. The decadent, beefed up version of Depeche Mode’s "Personal Jesus" may not vary much from the original but the band do it the appropriate Goth justice; "Tainted Love" adds a menacing, industrial-glam to the electric northern soul of Soft Cell’s version; and the one that broke them into the UK mainstream, "Sweet Dreams" by the Eurythmics sounds as good as ever. So, they do a good cover but it’s really the fists in the air crowd-pleasing anthems that back up the band’s iconic imagery. The high-energy signature tune, "Beautiful People" and tracks like "Disposable Teens" or "The Fight Song" typify the band’s intelligent approach to rock’n’roll posturing. While many may have all the albums already, Lest We Forget is the perfect addition for anyone who likes the odd song but was too fearful to delve any further in the world of Marilyn Manson. --Georgina Collins

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Marilyn Manson CD Cover Download

Amazon.com Review: Marilyn Manson started out as a depraved, marginally talented group of freaks that played a caustic but undeveloped brand of metallic industrial noise. Then Trent Reznor stepped into the studio for seven months with the band, and Manson emerged with the most intense, visceral, mechanical metal album since The Downward Spiral. Antichrist Superstar is a horror-house of grisly atrocities that stains as indelibly as a bathful of warm blood. Brooding rhythms collide with corrosive samples and buzzsaw guitar riffs, while vocalist Marilyn croons irresistible melodies in the voice of a vagrant regurgitating broken light-bulb shards. Essential listening, regardless of how much input Reznor had. --Jon Wiederhorn