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.