Marilyn Manson – “Lest We Forget: The Best of….”

Just like so many other artists who have released greatest hits collections in the past year, hard rocker Marilyn Manson has followed suit with his first ever best of collection. The last we heard from Manson was his 2003 album The Golden Age of Grotesque, a comeback album of sorts for him after the mediocre Holywood from 2000. Now he is back with a seventeen track collection of his best material, ranging from 1994’s Portrait of an American Family to the aforementioned The Golden Age of Grotesque. I had never been a huge fan of Manson or any of his albums, but he does have quite a few hit songs that I enjoyed. Lest We Forget contains some of Manson’s best work, with of course a couple of disappointing omissions.

The album begins with the track “Love Song” before getting into the one new song, a reinterpretation of the Depeche Mode hit “Personal Jesus.” Manson’s strongest work seems to come from remaking other people’s songs from the ‘80s and “Personal Jesus” is no exception. He has mostly taken away the ‘80s type sound to the song and replaced it with heavy, grinding guitar riffs that sound awesome. Manson did shorten the song and omit the long ending of the original, but his version is fast, hard and just as good if not better than the original. Because “Personal Jesus” was so good, it was a bit disappointing that it was the only new song included on the disc. Two other covers of ‘80s songs, the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” and Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love” are also included in the collection and they are such good interpretations of the originals that it makes you wonder if Manson should just scrap his original material and specialize in doing other people’s songs.

The best songs of Manson’s original material on the album such as “Dope Show,” “Mobscene” and “Disposable Teens” are all on here, but one disappointment came with perhaps his biggest hit “Beautiful People.” It is a slightly different version from the one that appeared on his 1995 album AntiChrist Superstar and it is not as good as the original. I also didn’t care for a few of his lesser known hits such as “Nobodies,” “Reflecting God,” and “Lunchbox.” The collection is also missing a couple of Manson’s best songs, most notably “I Don’t Like the Drugs but the Drugs Like Me” from his Mechanical Animals album. I would have liked to see that track included instead of a few of songs previously mentioned.

Overall, Lest We Forget is a solid collection of most of Marilyn Manson’s best material. It contains almost all of his biggest hits, but with a few notable omissions. It also would have been nice to get one or two more new tracks to justify buying a collection of songs that have already appeared on his other albums. Also absent is some of his earliest work that many people have not heard. Perhaps a two disc set would have worked better with the first disc being all the hits and the second one containing some of his better, lesser known songs. If you are a fan of Manson’s hits though and are not too much of a hardcore fan, then Lest We Forget should be quite satisfying to you.  [ END ]

Track Listing:

01. Love Song
02. Personal Jesus
03. mOBSCENE
04. Fight Song
05. Tainted Love
06. Dope Show
07. This is the New Shit
08. Disposable Teens
09. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
10. Lunchbox
11. Tourniquet
12. Rock Is Dead
13. Get Your Gunn
14. Nobodies
15. Long Hard Road Out of Hell
16. Beautiful People
17. Reflecting God

Run Time: 1:05:49
Release Date: 2004