Here We Are Now, Entertain Us!

• Author: BASSIN, IAN

MANSON: DEAD ON ARRIVAL

His band has been called the "sickest group ever promoted by a mainstream record company" by Democrat Joseph Lieberman. And while Eminem seemed to surpass him as the poster boy for offensive entertainment, Marilyn Manson is set to steal back the title with the band's sixth release, Holy Wood. But the album is so laden with blatant attempts to push the buttons of the establishment, one can't help almost laughing at the transparency of Manson's lyrics.

Die-hard Manson fans will be glad he has mostly shunned the glam direction he seemed headed for with Mechanical Animals. The new record returns to a more straightforward goth sound (although the sure-to-be hit single, "Disposable Teens," betrays Manson's glam-rock tendencies). Unfortunately, the album is too goofy to be haunting and too unoriginal to be anthemic.

Recorded in Harry Houdini's old pad and written in the house in which the Rolling Stones lived while recording Let It Bleed, Holy Wood is creatively and inventively stunted. Where Manson's breakthrough album, Antichrist Superstar, featured clever wordplay and bitingly mocked his critics, in Holy Wood Manson's bleak obsession with death and all things subversive turns old and tired. He sounds ultimately like a parody of himself. On tracks such as "The Death Song" and "GodEatGod," the rocker many Americans tried to blame for the Columbine tragedy does little to dispel that notion. Too bad he couldn't do so with more wit and intellect. Parents, teachers, and politicians are sure to blast this record as dangerous. Lucky for them, only good rock 'n' roll can be that. This isn't it.

also coming this winter ...

Wu Tang Clan: The W

After a three-year hiatus during which every Clan member except Masta Killah released a solo album (don't worry, he's got one on the way), the Wu is back with another hyped-to-be-epic release. This time, the Clan relocated from their native Staten Island, N.Y., to the City of Angels to record the album. It might have been the mansion on Mulholland Drive and the 22-seat limousine that pulled Wu out to L.A., or it might have been that O.D.B. could only record during weekend furloughs from the Los Angeles halfway house where he's currently doing time.

Fatboy Slim: Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars

After your last album got played as a rallying cry on Al Gore's campaign trail, how do you follow it up? Fatboy, known to his friends and family as Norman Cook, decided to get together with a...