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Originally Posted by Severian
I never thought I'd hear another Nine Inch Nails album in 1997. Now I've heard at least one too many for a lifetime.
In 1997, I still actively listened to Marilyn Manson, and would for another year. 
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I was just listening to Antichrist Svperstar two nights ago, it led me to watch the Dead to the World video on youtube.
All in all you can be forgiven, Marilyn Manson between 1994-1998 was actually good, in fact, really good. I still think Antichrist Svperstar belongs in the 20th century pantheon of rock albums. It was layered. It was original. It was intelligent. It was trolling the fuck out of everyone. It was art. It was theater.
Marilyn Manson were just a bunch of theater nerds in high school and started a theater nerd band that caught attention at the perfect storm for their nerdcore approach. They reinvented themselves and their image as some kind of debauchery fueled misanthropes and yet I think the joke was on everyone (including most of their fans) who didn't realize it was all just some nerd stuff.
Really, Trent Reznor made Antichrist Svperstar. It is a Trent Reznor album more than anything, and when you listen to it in hindsight with that insight it becomes a better record.
The layers and textures of that record were like a darkside of Kid A. It was more brilliant than it gets credit for simply because of its popularity as well as the schlock rock aspects of the band's tour and publicity.
I think if we listen to that record on its own, not knowing anything about it, it would get more credibility. Also Portrait of an American Family, another Trent Reznor influenced piece, is another great metal album. It was before the band became subsumed in their own imaginations about themselves, they were just a straight forward metal band full of awkward theater nerds from northern Florida..