In 1994, I went to see NIN perform live & Marilyn Manson kicked off their show. They were intense & had a strong element of danger and unpredictability that's sadly disappeared for the most part from rock music. I was in love, and thus sought out this, their major-label debut album. I've listened to Portrait so many times I can recite every word on it including the samples. It's dark, it's weird, and there's something really fun about the whole experience. Manson's lyrics are interesting throughout as they touch on a variety of issues with a bit of social commentary, but for my money the highlight here is the music especially the guitar work by Daisy Berkowitz AKA Scott Putesky. At the time I'd never heard a sound like he made, and I really haven't heard anyone else duplicate it since.
I was so in love with this album that I wound up buying a handful of live bootlegs on CD as well as a bootleg VHS of theirs. The sound quality on all of them was OK, but each of the CDs wound up giving me a chance to hear at least one song I hadn't heard before. A couple included live performances of the Spooky Kids song "White Knuckles", but the one I bought after Smells Like Children came out had early versions of songs that wound up on Antichrist Superstar.
Favorite song:"Snakeeyes and Sissies"
