‘Pale Emperor’
Marilyn Manson
D+
Making a living as a musician is undoubtedly a time-consuming, strenuous and overly demanding career path.
It’s amplified tenfold when acclaimed artists, such as Pink Floyd, the Who and U2 especially, struggle to keep their star power from fading away into the void after so much time has passed and relevancy becomes only a mere looming threat.
Some veteran bands have succeeded in pulling off the “aging gracefully” period fairly well, releasing quality albums without the use of tired gimmicks and forced controversy.
Marilyn Manson, while being an expert with cheap shock tactics, seems to have missed the memo.
His latest album, “Pale Emperor,” personifies his career status all too well.
Say what you will about Manson, but at least his earlier works, such as “Antichrist Superstar” and “Holy Wood,” had plenty of interesting ideas, sounds and concepts, shocking and disturbing antics aside.
Those albums sustained at least some amount of provocative substance.
But apparently, the well ran dry faster than expected.
“Pale Emperor,” to put it nicely, amounts to nothing more than being forced to watch a slug trying desperately to make its way across a tar pit: a mind-numbingly monotonous and uneventful slog, something you’ll want to end just as soon as the shot is fired.
Although Manson’s last few albums were drowning in mediocrity, a small number of tracks had some semblance of a spark within them to speed things up.
I guess he ran out of lighter fluid this time around.
Maybe this is too late to say, but it’s nearly impossible to say anything about “Pale Emperor” without sounding like a broken record.
It’s difficult to analyze something this half-baked and worn-out any further than what’s already been said about it.
Calling it a chore will have to do.
There was no sense of effort or of even trying to be remotely original.
Manson was, and probably still is, an intelligent, talented individual that has the ability to go beyond gimmicks and evolve into something more interesting and mature.
Why he decides to remain in adolescence is about as clear as the cover of his most recent album.
Dylan Corbeill
