“All the Vilest Things” initially sounds like a song about retaliation. The speaker has been attacked, wounded, and subjected to things that were intended to destroy him, and much of the language is deliberately violent. Yet Manson's own explanation points in a different direction. He describes the song as being about “balancing your resentments” and determining the proper measure of punishment in matters of war. More importantly, he says that the song provides “a real balance to the idea of vengeance.” The lyrics suggest that this balance comes from recognizing the damage that has been done without allowing the desire for revenge to become the thing that defines what happens next. The opening establishes the situation immediately: “You tried your best To destroy me I don't want revenge Because you only Made me stronger.” There is no attempt to minimize what happened. The speaker acknowledges that someone genuinely tried to destroy him. What changes is his response t...
Metal Injection Readers Choose Marilyn Manson's "One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1" for Album of the Year 2024
About a week ago, Metal Injection, an online music publication focusing on hard rock and heavy metal, issued a list of their top 25 albums of 2024, and around the same time opened up a poll for their readers to choose from a long list of albums that came out over the past year. On December 17th the results of their poll came in, and Marilyn Manson's One Assassination Under God – Chapter 1 came out on top of a list of twenty albums. This is interesting especially in light of Metal Injection's official list, which didn't even have Manson in their top 25.