I cautiously/desperately wanted to listen to Marilyn Manson after seeing the poster for his third (and best) album, Mechanical Animals, hanging on the far back wall of the lacking music store in the lacking mall. I was 12, the internet was still a primitive concept, and all nudity still seemed mildly alarming—especially pale, sinister, rivetingly gross alien nudity. So this was what a MAR1LYN MAN5ON was. I had totally heard of her.

Through the older siblings of friends, I listened to the first four albums, and just sort of let the whole thing sink in. Even as a naive kid, I wasn't necessarily buying the over-the-top shock concepts (drugs! Sex! God is dead and also in the TV!) I simply appreciated the whole fucked-up package: the outfits, the makeup, the dedication to a theme. Something my adult self shares with my middle-school self is a love for a matching shtick, groups that are the same but different—Powerpuff Girls, Sailor Moon, Jem and the Holograms. Twiggy Ramirez was like the Blueberry Muffin to Manson's Strawberry Shortcake.

In seventh-grade "health" (the class where you learn to clip your nails), I sat in front of Sarah, a quiet, dangerous stoner with stringy black hair. In exchange for my drawing an excessively crosshatched 'shroom on the back of her notebook, Sarah lent me her copy of Marilyn Manson's autobiography, The Long Hard Road out of Hell. I stayed up as late as I could and finished it in two days. It was the most shocking thing I had ever read.

My music, um, "taste" in middle school was an unremarkable mash-up of what my parents listened to and what the cool neighbor kids who had CD players in their rooms listened to: the Beatles, Buffalo Springfield, the Rolling Stones, the Judds, Green Day, TLC, White Zombie, Cypress Hill, Alanis Morissette, Third Eye Blind, the radio. So no, the music of Marilyn Manson didn't "speak" to me in the way that parents assumed "evil" music did. This was no Slayer—I was just there for the pop music. I didn't have a stake in the censorship-worthy depravity, but I do remember how quickly the concept of "shock" in his performance became commonplace and then comical and then downright stupid. Marilyn Manson was delightfully stupid, but it somehow felt more worthwhile than whatever Britney Spears was selling. Plus, songs "The Dope Show" and "The Beautiful People" weren't even trying to be heavy—they were nothing but catchy. I mean, you might as well be listening to "Who Let the Dogs Out."

For a while, the world watched every move Marilyn Manson made. Let's not forget that the right wing and the media were so terrified by this ridiculous rock star that they actually blamed him for the Columbine shootings. My memory of his TV appearances paints him as some eloquent genius. Rewatching them now, I think I was just impressed because (A) he wasn't, like, spitting blood or essing his own dee after that rumored rib removal, and (B) he was the first person I'd ever heard calling out the hypocrisy and complicity of a president who railed against domestic violence while bombing the shit out of other countries.

I'll admit it: I was on board. During "quiet, mandatory private journal time" in one of my classes, I wrote:

Within a few years, I hastily began to tap-dance away from mainstream everything, as one does. The early 2000s were a great time for learning that popular culture is garbage, especially when older, wiser, Converse-wearing friends start showing you "real music." Once I heard the Ramones and Nirvana, it was over. Once I heard Bikini Kill and the Dead Milkmen, it was really over. I realized there were a billion better bands out there and lost track of Marilyn and his gang.

A decade later, I uploaded thousands of MP3s onto my first laptop via a college friend's hard drive. Amid the Sleater-Kinney and Spits, I also inexplicably had Marilyn Manson's discography up to 2003. When a classic Manson hit popped up on my iTunes shuffle, I didn't turn it off. Roughly a decade after that, while I was practicing with a Halloween-only band (covering the acceptable horror music of Roky Erickson), we got to joking about other songs we should cover for the holiday.

Someone: We should cover "The Beautiful People!"

[Silence]

Me: I actually looooooved Marilyn Manson.

Everyone: Me too.

Now that I'm a fully formed adult who knows that you can like the Fall AND Miley Cyrus, I fondly keep tabs on what 46-year-old Marilyn is up to. And yes, I'll probably check out the show when he comes through. Even though, you know, rock is dead.