With a history as long and controversial as Marilyn Manson‘s, you better believe that we here at Bloody-Disgusting have taken notice and are gonna show some love. And with Manson’s 9th studio album, The Pale Emperor, arriving this coming January, I wanted to take the time to rank his albums. This was an extremely difficult task- some of you might be surprised to learn what’s number one. What do you think?

8. “Eat Me, Drink Me” (2007)

Of all the Manson albums, Eat Me, Drink Me is the only one to leave me wholly disappointed and angry. It felt rushed, it felt compromised (by Manson’s then-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood), it was also off-key. While no Manson album sounds alike, this was the first to lack focus, feeling like a sloppy noir-inspired love letter to Wood.

Being that I consider myself a massive Manson fan, I forced myself to like the album. Yes, forced myself. I listened to it until I found things to like – outside of the radio hits “If I Was Your Vampire” and “Heart-Shaped Glasses” – and eventually learned to love the title track, as well as “Just a Car Crash Away” and “Evidence”.

7. “Born Villain” (2012)

Also disappointing, but by no means bad as Eat Me, Drink Me, is Born Villain, Manson’s depressing reflection of the aging rock star. At the time it felt like Manson was struggling to regain relevancy and trying to prove he was still “metal”, “scary” and “weird”. The essence of the album annoyed me, but to hear Manson’s interpretation of a heavy metal album was truly a unique experience.

The biggest gripe is that Manson, who is known for his rock-ready anthem hooks, seemed to throw them away completely. The result was a singular sound that blends together, making the majority of the album completely forgettable. After years of listening, songs like “Children of Cain”, “Born Villain” and “Hey, Cruel World…” have joined my regular rotation with the supreme lead single “No Reflection”.

6. “Portrait of an American Family” (1994)

The mere fact that Portrait of an American Family is ranked so low on this list is a testament of how incredible Manson’s career truly is.

I picked this up the day it hit stores, and played the CD to death (I’ve yet to wear down an album like this). What’s most incredible about Manson’s discography is how different Portrait is, and how much he evolved from it. Portrait is a product of the time, coming out perfectly in the years when Nine Inch Nails and similar bands were dominating the space. Only Manson took it a step further, delivering his own dark and twisted imagery that was a cross between Alice Cooper, David Bowie, and Rob Zombie.

In retrospect, its level of cheese is of legend, but in 1994 Portrait was some dark and weird shit (see “Cake and Sodomy”, “My Monkey”, “Get Your Gun”, etc.). How many bands can you look back at their debut album and say, “That’s not what defined them but it’s what set them on the course to greatness.” See Antichrist Superstar to continue this conversation.

5. “The Golden Age of Grotesque” (2003)

TGAOG is such a wicked cool album, being that it’s the first without Twiggy Ramirez, and the first with Tim Sköld of KMFDM fame. What ends up blasting out of speakers is an industrial metal album – albeit a bit late in terms of the genre’s popularity – that’s hook-heavy and filled with classic Manson chants.

If Antichrist Superstar was stadium rock, this was industrial club rock. TGAOG was also at the height of the Manson parody, delivering cleverly titled jingles such as “mOBSCENE” and “(s)AINT”, while begging fans to stand up and shout with “This Is the New Shit” and “Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag”.

4. “The High End of Low” (2009)

After the 2007 debacle Eat Me, Drink Me, it had officially been six years since Manson impressed me (with “TGAOG”). It was also the first time that I had doubted a release, feeling less than enthused about what he would accomplish.

Reuniting (finally) with Twiggy, The High End of Low is one of the most surprising album in recent memory, delivering all sorts of wicked acoustic riffs – in songs like “Four Rusted Horses”, “I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell”, and “Into the Fire” – that build to an explosive climax. It was also a return to his rock-ready form blasting out classics like “Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon” and “We’re from America”.

And the true gift of High End of Low are the leaked variations that lack production value (in a super good way), giving them a sort of 1980’s metal sound, only with a heavy dose of acoustic instruments. Dare I say they remind me of …and Justice For All?

3. “Mechanical Animals” (1998)

Mechanical Animals was a shock to the system, being that my ears were used to Manson’s heavy metal industrial blaze he set afire across the world. This was a truly defining moment in Manson’s career where he chose to create something unique and different, as opposed to recreating and retreading the success of Antichrist Superstar.

Mechanical Animals is a goddamn masterpiece that’s heavily influenced by David Bowie and Pink Floyd. There’s a beautiful sadness to the album, that feels like Manson’s self-reflection on the drugs, fame and the price of it all.

While most observant fans will remember the album for “The Dope Show” and “I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)”, Animals to me will always be the best of Manson’s bed-time horror stories that are both soothing and mortifying. There’s nothing in his entire collective career that compares to songs such as “Great Big White World”, “The Last Day on Earth” and “Coma White”, all of which are available as alternate acoustic takes that are even more impressive than what’s on the album.

2. “Antichrist Superstar” (1996)

This is where the train falls off the tracks, and you dear readers begin to despise my assertion that Holy Wood is a better album than Antichrist Superstar. While Antichrist is easily my favorite of all of Manson’s work, it’s not the best (although, Antichrist could easily be 1B to Holy Wood‘s 1A).

Antichrist Superstar is Marilyn Manson’s powerhouse masterpiece, an album that announced his arrival upon the world. He was the Antichrist in the sense that he surged through the music world as the negative to the happy-go-lucky crap being custom formed and created by labels (see NSync, Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears).

Completely misunderstood, Manson relished in the negative press, soaking in the religious hatred, while also knocking the socks off various protestors in his well-spoken and thought-provoking television interviews.

For those gifted with the opportunity to experience this album when it came out, then you know Antichrist Superstar delivered pulse-pounding and soul-screaming rock that brewed deep inside your belly and could only be released through vigorous listening sessions. The album took Manson out of the conversation as being “like Nine Inch Nails” (Trent Reznor actually produced the album) to becoming his own entity, an embodiment of modern anthem rock that would fill stadiums from coast to coast.

Easily one of the heaviest albums ever recorded, Antichrist is fueled with teen-bred anger and rage directed against the (religious) system that nearly every kid could identify with. Oh, and it pissed parents off, which only added fuel to the fire…

1. “Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)” (2000)

Holy Wood is a very personal record for true fans, as it’s the first album released that left the “Antichrist” wannabes in the dust.

Furthering what Manson did with Mechanical Animals, Holy Wood – which is shockingly Manson’s best selling album ever – sounds like nothing I have ever heard before. Instead of retread, Holy Wood keeps the slow-burn elements of Mechanical Animals and adds a horror movie vibe to them, while also bringing back a few stadium rock anthems that would be among his best (“The Fight Song”, “The Nobodies” and “Disposable Teens”).

It’s also the third and final of Manson’s trilogy, which thematically delivers a strong final punch. Even though Manson is still going strong, Holy Wood feels like his true last hurrah that embodies the years of his musical and pop cultural domination.