I was lis­ten­ing to Manson’s sec­ond album, Antichrist Superstar, for the first time after a sev­eral year hia­tus on the bus to work this morn­ing. I was reminded of how much I went through with this album, for most of high-school and nearly two entire rela­tion­ships. How com­fort­ing this music was for me, on the jour­ney home from my exhaust­ing classes and elit­ist class­mates. It’s the only good album Manson ever put out, and also hap­pens to be the only album that Trent Reznor pro­duced for him. I’m will­ing to bet that it isn’t sim­ple coincidence.

I never really get a chance to lis­ten to these songs; even though I con­sider the music to be metal, the songs are too dark and moody to fit into my metal playlist. It’s the same thing with Tool. Aside from Opiate, which was just an EP anyway,Tool’s music has never fit into any spe­cific genre to me. They have a metal feel and pro­gres­sive rock ele­ments, but are never enough of one or the either to fit into any of my playlists.