A Different Kind of Comeback At first glance, Henri Alexander Lévy's music video for Marilyn Manson's "Front Toward Enemy" appears surprisingly restrained. Considering the title and the confrontational tone of the song, one might reasonably expect a visual statement built around warfare, retaliation, or public vindication. Instead, the music video repeatedly turns away from those expectations. It lingers on a child dressed in military attire, a motionless body on an examination table, shelves of psychology books, childhood trophies, playground equipment, and a cabinet filled with carefully arranged artifacts. None of these images directly illustrates the lyrics, yet none of them feels arbitrary. By the time the music video ends, it becomes clear that Lévy is asking the viewer to consider something more complicated than revenge. That immediately distinguishes the video from the song itself. Borrowing its title from the M18A1 Claymore mine, whose front face bears th...
48 hours after the release of "God is a Weapon", the music video has garnered 1.5 million views on YouTube and was trending there at #2 for music, while previously in just one day it had hit a million views and at its peak was trending at #4 for all YouTube videos. The song has been trending on all the major streaming services as well. The music video has inspired many reaction videos on YouTube als (most of which are very funny and worth watching at least for the reaction when they realize Marilyn Manson is a part of it), and out of the 20 or so that I saw it was received very positively, primarily because the song is often described as an earworm that is very pleasant to listen to which slowly builds up but doesn't take too long to do so, and the video has cinematic production value, while at the same time the lyrics and symbolism are thought provoking. These are perfect ingredients for a song to be listened to repeatedly. As for Falling in Reverse and their lead singer...