Critical of a pill-popping woman, “Coma White” says, “All the drugs in this world won’t save her from herself.” But . . .
One anti-drug avowal can’t begin to compensate for the many tracks glamorizing drug use (“Rock Is Dead,” “I Don’t Like the Drugs, But They Like Me,” “I Want to Disappear,” “New Model No. 15,” “Dope Show”). Manson’s warped theology includes the reduction of God to a statistic (“Posthuman”), and the suggestion that people live multiple lives (“The Last Day on Earth”). He also makes the statements, “If I loved myself I’d be shooting you” (“Fundamentally Loathsome”), “I’m just a boy playing the suicide king” (“Mechanical Animals”), “I’m not in love, but I’m gonna f— you until someone better comes along” (“User Friendly”) and “I wanna die young and sell my soul” (“I Want to Disappear”). CD photos show Manson clothed in anatomical androgyny.
Goth’s pied piper has undergone a David Bowie-esque makeover. But while Mechanical Animals isn’t as overtly satanic as earlier discs, it’s no less bitter or disturbed. Obscenities fly amid themes of angst, apathy and abuse.
