Customer Reviews

Portrait of an American Family

5 star:		(91)
4 star:		(30)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Before "Antichrist Superstar" made Marilyn Manson a household name, this 1994 major label debut album was the beginning of he and his band invading mainstream America. After shortening the name of the band from Marilyn Manson & The Spooky Kids to just Marilyn Manson, they signed with Interscope Records and Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor produced this brilliant album; which showcases the social and moral decay of average Amercian family life. Song like "Organ Grinder", "Cake & Sodomy", "Dogma", "Get Your Gunn", "Sweet Tooth", "My Monkey", "Misery Machine", and the chilling "Lunchbox" are all thought provoking songs that really do make the listener think. Forget "Antichrist Superstar", "Mechanical Animals", and "Holy Wood", if there is one Marilyn Manson album to get, make it "Portrait of An American Family", and you will hear that the reason he is the man so many die hard Christian fanatics love to hate, is because he could be right about what he is saying.

Most of these songs were written by Marilyn Manson And The Spooky Kids, a long while back. Before The Fallen Angel, before Omega and the Mechanical Animals, before Adam and the revolution. These are songs which tell society as it is, while making fun of it. The bumpy ride beings on Prelude, a demented Willy Wonka rip-off. The singles: Lunchbox, and Get Your Gunn speak of a young boy being picked on and a woman suffering abuse from her husband. Other songs talk about how our youth will follow anything and the "average" family. It really is a Portrait Of An American Family. The strongest tracks are Lunchbox, Get Your Gunn, Dope Hat, and Misery Machine. If you want the glam of Mechanical Animals, or the industrial Hell of Antichrist Superstar, this album is NOT for you. This has a fresh and unique sound not duplicated on any other Manson album. This is truely where the saga began.

If you think KoRn has something to say, you never really listened to Marilyn Manson's debut. Instead of bashing him for not making another Beautiful People kind of riff, go to your nearest cd store and buy this thing. Manson doesn't hate women, or cops, or children, he simply describes the world as it really is and was when he was a kid. This CD has a really bashing sound to it and the lyrics are like targeting a bullet to light-minded persons. Portrait is just what the title suggests and it's one of the best hard rock albums made in the 90s. While KoRn and other i-just-hate-everything-'cause-it's-fashionable losers are enjoying their ADIDAS and NIKE outfits, Manson attacks for the sake of intelligence.

Mariyln Manson is NOT for children under 13. But frankly who gives a good Goddamn!!! Manson is probably the World's best "Shock Rocker"! Here's how the Songs are

Prelude (The Family Trip) - Decent Instermental 2.5/5

Cake And Sodomy - Probably Manson's most explicit song, but Fu*king Awsome!!! 6/5

Lunchbox - A power anthem for kids being picked on at school, I like the saying "Next Motherfu*ker Gonna' Get My Metal!" 5/5

Organ Grinder - Funny/Sick lyrics, and very good Keyboard/synthysizer/Organ. Good job M.W. Gacy! 4.75/5

Cyclops - Just another ol' track, but catchy. Nice Guitar, Daisy Berkowitz's highlight! 4.5/5

Dope Hat - The most addictive on the album! If you see the video, you can see how it is a sick parody of Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory. M.W. Gacy pulls through again! 6/5

Get Your Gunn - My 4th Favorite! Twiggy Ramirez's bass is impeccable! 5/5

Wrapped In Plastic - Not very catchy, but good lyrics 4.75/5

Dogma - Creepy, but Impossible not to sing along! 5/5

Sweet Tooth - Nice Saxaphone And Lyrics, this has more of a "Sadistic" aproach. 4.75/5

Snake Eyes And Sissies - KABOOM!!! Another Hit!!! Manson & Pals really can harmonize in a sick way. 5/5

My Monkey - Funny, but Mediocre Lyrics. I think this was origanally based on a Charles Manson song, give or take a few lyrics. 3/5

Misery Machine - Good way to end the album, for some reason theres a 6-7 minute silence period at the end making this song only about 5 minutes compared to 13 mins. 4/5

Overall this album Kicks...!!

YOU SPOONFED US SATURDAY MORNING MOUTHFULS OF MAGGOTS AND LIES DISGUISED IN YOUR SUGARY BREAKFAST CEREALS. THE PLATES YOU MADE US CLEAN WERE FILLED WITH YOUR FEARS. THESE THINGS HAVE HARDENED IN OUR SOFT PINK BELLIES. WE ARE WHAT YOU HAVE MADE US. WE HAVE GROWN UP WATCHING YOUR TELEVISION. WE ARE A SYMPTOM OF YOUR CHRISTIAN AMERICA, THE BIGGEST SATAN OF ALL. THIS IS YOUR WORLD WHICH WE GROW. AND WE WILL GROW TO HATE YOU.
~Marilyn Manson~

This is the first from MM. This is so f in' awesome. Snake Eyes and Sissies is enough to buy it. Get Your Gunn is on here. Lunchbox is on here. Hell, Dope Hat is on here!!!! This is a must have for EVERYONE. I think MM should of stayed with this line-up. Twiggy is here. Marilyn is here. Daisy is here. Madonna is here. Sara is here. I think its somewhat is some aspects better then the rest of the albums even though I said in other reviews that "something" else was. This isn't best overall, but its truely without a doubt the album that started EVERYTHING and a masterpiece. Pick it up!!!!

This was the very last Manson CD i bought, which i now consider a good thing becuase if i would have gotten this first, all of his other work would have paled in comparason. Oddly enough, this album retains a certian rough, unpolished, feel to it, becuase it was manson's first CD, but if you listen to him, he sounds like an old rock star coming back ten years after his heyday to dish out more music. So in the end, it turns out sounding immature but at the same time, as if our little freind here knows damn well what hes doing. Obviously i find this to be his best work, becuase it was his only rock album, and it sounded so out of place in the time it was made. Now i love all of his other stuff, dont get me wrong. But its obvious this could be the crap out of Golden AGe of Grotesque, with its weak porno lyrics, distorted vocals, and cheerleaders. And when he didnt have the millions that he has now, the arch dandy didnt need stage props and flashy outfits to win over a crowd.
Obviously this CD has tons of metaphors that will go over most of the heads of ignorant americans. Such as 'Get Your Gunn,' which, although the bad connotations of the title, actually is referring to the killing of the abortion doctor, Doctor Gunn. The songs main point is that killing abortion doctors doesnt make you pro-life. And while 'Cake and Sodomy' may sound like a dirty excuse of a song, its a statement about the hypocracy of America. 'Wrapped in Plastic' asks us the maddening question 'does the plastic on the couch keep the dirt out, or does it keep it in?.' And then theres 'lunchbox,' the most ironic track on portriat, for the lyrics 'i want to grow up, i want to a big rock and roll star' well, it happened. But strangely enough, this track's main riff sounds musically familiar to that of Golden Age Of Grotesque's 'Ka-Boom Ka-Boom' execpt the lyrics are the exact oppasite. Listen, youll hear it. And of course one of my favorites 'Dogma' thats all about religious persicution, and then 'Misery Machine' a spoof on a scooby doo song, which explains why i found it sort of familiar.
Not only does this album pack a painfull punch on the American way of life, it intoxicates you with guitar solos (something you wont find in ANY of his other CDs besides the remix ep...)and his crashing vocals, and will no doubt leave you doing air guitars all the while sitting there in deep thought.
For all you people that act like this music is corruptive and sick, well i have two things to say:
1.) All hes doing is telling the truth, and you have no room to hate someone for that becuase chances are you watch the news and you watch those images of soldiers getting their heads cut off becuase, hey! its the news!
2.)If your morals are so strong and youve done such a good job raising your children, than you why are you so easily shaken by one man? If you truely belived in the thigns you belive and teach than none of this would even scare you.

This album is brilliant. Personally I am a huge fan of Manson's music and respect all of his beliefs and opinions and for me this is his greatest achievment.

look inside, look at the photos on the get your gunn and lunchbox singles, THIS is what Manson is to me. This album is full of punky energy and anarchistic sentiment. It manages all the things the other albums were capable of, but because of the lack of any sort of prop other than these guys were pretty weird, the messages are delivered far more brutally and without any over the top theatrical metaphors. That's not to say this is a faulted work because of it's, some might say, immaturity.
This album is the Manson I know and love. I heard dope hat and then get your gunn and my life changed. I was young (about twelve) so many of the lyrics flew right over my head, but i loved the sickness of it all, the depravity, the ability of a group of guys to make something that makes you feel dirty and almost violated as you listen to it. This power really intrigued me at this age (and arguably led to my taste for the more extreme sides of the musical spectrum)

This Manson didn't need enormous burning crucifixes, thousand pound stage get-up, or hoardes upon hoardes of teenagers to scare the world. This Manson achieved all this in the truest sense possible. They managed to frighten America, and soon, the world. They managed to disgust and become reviled. How many current Manson fans didn't first give them a listen because they were "evil"

Now it's all changed, as oppsed to being an institution worth worrying about, Manson has become a joke, billions of teenagers replicating his sentiments, not having a clue what they actually mean. The band has become overwrapped in drama and pretentiousness. They're still good.

But the blistering assault of Misery Machine,the truly creepy Dope Hat and Wrapped in Plastic, and the resentment filled/fuelled Get Your Gunn are tunes that truly make the listener pay attention.

The majority of Manson fans first discovered them during Antichrist or Mechanical Animals. THIS is the only true Manson album in my opinion.

It's far harder to get your point across when no one's listening. This is the sound of a band trying and succeeding to do this.

Marilyn Manson's debut album is still just as controversial today as it was when it first came out and also still just as fun to listen to. The CD is filled with 13 tracks of utter delight to fans of controversial and heavy music that brings bitter disgust to the more closed-minded music listeners that fear this band's image and so-called stance on things. But whether you agree with the opinions made in their music or not, you have to admire the upright balls they have to do what they do and be successful at it. As a loyal Marilyn Manson fan, this is a must-have for any Manson fan to understand where this band and man first evolved from. Before he was the all-American Antichrist, the androgynous Omega, the fallen revolutionary Adam, or the current Arch Dandy No-Goodnik, he was a rather playful mischief maker who released this scrum-diddily-umptious collection of nursery-rhyme songs mixed with a slab of religion, incest and playground bullying into a cartoon nightmare. Let us observe...
PRELUDE (THE FAMILY TRIP) is a minute long intro to the demonic Willy Wonka boat-ride tune setting the stage for what is to come. It leads to CAKE AND SODOMY, a highly political song comparing this nation to that of high men who will in the end put us "white trash" down on our knees into our place. LUNCHBOX then illustrates a young boy beaten on a playground taking vengeance with his rectangular hunk of "metal" he has with him. ORGAN GRINDER shows a once scared individual finally unmasking himself to his loved ones for what he is, showing them his "real head". In the next song, we see the fictional character of the CYCLOPS being a sort of mother-figure who, in denial and resentment, seeing "nothing, nothing at all..." As the boat ride turns to DOPE HAT, the Great Hoodoo performs a feast of prestidigitation, but we all know as the audience that the hat is actually "wearing him." GET YOUR GUNN is of a young girl's witness to the abuse at the hands of her father and the fake (pseudo) morals that fills her home, she urges her mother to just "get your gunn"... WRAPPED IN PLASTIC shares a similar topic as a denial-stricken mother does not see the incest going on in her own home done by her husband, the lies are simply "wrapped in plastic". The emotionally charged rollercoaster advances to DOGMA which urges one to simply "burn your witches and bridges" for you can decide your own fate, but not your hate. The seduction of SWEET TOOTH then shows the control that lust can have over a male and how some of them then fail to control their own actions, like a disease which is draining them. SNAKE EYES AND SISSIES is then an attack at the typical American beer-drinking, wife-beating male who always thinks it matters if his car is bigger then his neighbor's and that he's got the upper hand in his family. The nightmare continues into MY MONKEY, a demented cover of a Charles Manson song sung by an electronically enhanced Manson's voice to sound like a child singing about his dead monkey... or is it really dead? MISERY MACHINE then comes speeding down the lane, but it does not hold the Scooby-Doo gang. This menacing vehicle is on the way to "the Abbey of Thelema" and it is "fueled by filth and fury"... blood is pavement. As the album closes with a paranoid housewife screaming words of anti-comunism and hatred towards a child's parents, the a phone rings for about 6 long minutes, when finally a message is left by a disgruntled parent who's son apparently listens to Marilyn Manson.
An odd first album indeed, it is still a must for Manson fans or for those interested in exactly what Manson's view of the so-called "American Family" actually is... obviously from the content of the songs... it doesn't look like the Cleavers... and indeed, was it ever?

This is Manson's best album. I'm a long time fan who's been following them since 1995 and to me this album sums up what Marilyn Manson is all about. They were a band doing what they want to do and not caring about anything else. On here it's all about the music and less about the image. And it's actually still a band, rather than just all about Manson himself. The musicianship of Daisy and Gidget really shines through. The songs are unique and original and the entire band seems to have that hunger to really do something special. And there are no attempts at writing some cheesy bland radio friendly song about being a teenage outcast (holywood). I'm still a Manson fan today, but I am a bit alienated by Mansons constant attempts at catering to the mainstream on recent albums. If you want a great rock album that truely stands on its own as an original piece of work, then get this album. I bought this album 10 years ago and to this day it remains my all time favorite album. Kill the chicken!!

I have been listening to all of Marilyn Manson's albums in the weeks awaiting his newest release "The High End of Low" which was just released May 26th, 2009. I spent much of my teen years listening to Marilyn Manson and consider myself a big fan of his work. But this does not make me biased in any way towards the high and lows (no pun intended) of his career. So this is my review series of all his albums. Hope you get to check them all out.

I really rate this album 3 1/2 stars. Its a decent album. For this review I will state the good followed by the bad.

THE GOOD:
This album is raw. It is full of angst ridden rock n roll! I can't think of any 16 year old kid who wouldn't like listening to this kind of music besides today's idiotic teens who only seem to listen to hip hop (and not even the good kind). It has a good amount of singles and it shows the beginning of a great musical act. For a debut album it is pretty good.

THE BAD:
This album is lacking in the quality of music. That is common with a debut album. Yes it has some really great tracks, but those tracks are also few and far between. They are overshadowed by some not so good tracks. Many that just seem like filler. You can tell that the band is still trying to find itself and it shows.

This album is pretty much the standard debut. It is raw, in your face, aggressive, and all over the place. The other problem with this album is that the angst feel to it is the kind that most people grow out of. It is a very "Teen angst" oriented album. If I had wrote this review back when I was 16, I would have given it a much higher rating. In other words it hasn't stood the test of time in my opinion. I am much older now and I find that I prefer Mechanical Animals and Holywood much more than this album. That is not saying the album is bad. For a debut it is great. But I am glad that the band evolved onto bigger and better things. There are many people out there with what I call "Debut album syndrome" in which they like the first album and the first album only of many bands. So much in fact that they will not listen to any of the other albums and they would definitely disagree on my review on this album. However I am not one of those people. I cannot stand it when a band does not evolve. For better or worse it is a band's duty to evolve and make every album different in my opinion and Marilyn Manson definitely does not fail on that aspect! Anyways, here is a track listing:

1. "Prelude (The Family Trip)" 1:20
2. "Cake and Sodomy" 3:46
3. "Lunchbox" 4:32
4. "Organ Grinder" 4:22
5. "Cyclops" 3:32
6. "Dope Hat" 4:21
7. "Get Your Gunn" 3:18
8. "Wrapped In Plastic" 5:35
9. "Dogma" 3:22
10. "Sweet Tooth" 5:03
11. "Snake Eyes and Sissies" 4:07
12. "My Monkey" 4:31
13. "Misery Machine" (with bonus track. actual song is 5:08)13:09

This album is not a bad album by any means. I like it alot and will listen to it from time to time. Especially those days when I am full of alot of angst. Angst doesn't go away over time... you just have alot less of it! I sort of grew out of this album. And in terms of music that is not a great thing. That is why I am reviewing it in such a way. I will note that Wrapped in Plastic is my favorite song on the album and should have been a single. It is a great song that shows the direction Manson and co. were heading. Its like a preview of everything after it. If you haven't listened to this album yet, definitely check it out. If you only check out one song, definitely check out "Wrapped in Plastic". It is not an essential album and all of the best songs are easily on "Lest we forget: The best of" Except of course "Wrapped in Plastic" So get all the songs that are on Best of plus "wrapped in plastic" and you have the best this album has to offer!