Unreleased Album: The Factory

Marilyn Manson is not a subjecy many people understand. To many, both the eponomous frontman and the band itself is just shock rock, or relics of the nineties. They see the music as just an offencive pile of garbage designed not to say anything, but to just anger people and appeal to "angsty" teenagers. Others see Marilyn Manson as a washed-up rocker, fat and ugly, without knowing anything about his life, or even where those "wrinkles", actually scars, came from. Many would consider him overly angsty, likely not knowing about his abusive childhood, molestation, or the fact that, although it's not visible like most, he is an Agent Orange baby. But, his personal life is not the subject of this post. No, this post is about The Factory, he and former member John 5's instrumental album, an album that was never released.

Now, Marilyn Manson's work has sounded like a real life creepypasta before. The EP Smells Like Children had two spoken-word tracks removed and replaced, as they could not get the people in them to sign wavers. These are known as "Abuse" parts one and two, and they're both interviews with real fans, two obviously. The confessions one is infamous for being just plain twisted, with the person Manson is interviewing confessing to molesting his young cousin (the irony of confessing your child molestation to someone that was molested as a child is dark but amusing). These tracks were supposed to be removed, but mysteriously, about a thousand copies of Smells Like Children instead had the original track listing. Thus, these tracks can be found on the Internet with ease.

However, The Factory is an enigma. Some claim his work on the Resident Evil soundtrack is it. This is wrong. Much like the original soundtrack to the film From Hell, also by him, it's appearently lost to the world. But, these are only two of the three missing albums. In 2005, a new "era" (a term used to refer to the art, photography, look, sound and direction of the band and it's vast difference as soon as a new album is released) was begun, the Celebritarian Era. However, it was aborted, and the album was also never released. These three albums, The Factory, From Hell and the untitled Celebritarian album join the ranks of the Holy Wood book in Manson fan mysteries.

While From Hell and the Celebritarian album would have been released under the Interscope lable, The Factory would have definately been under Trent Reznor's Nothing Records. So, imagine my surprise when I looked at the Seed Zero account on The Pirate Bay and saw "The Factory" uploaded. Seed Zero is Trent Reznor's plausable deniablity way of leaking things, including the not-a-creepypasta-but-should-be Broken album music video. In the description, he said that while it was never released due to the requests of John and Manson, he figured that rather than letting Interscope cash in on it one day, he'd set it free on the world. I realized it had only been posted mere moments before I saw it, and greedily downloaded it. I waited for it to finish, and then decided to refresh the page and see if anyone had commented. Instead, it had already been taken down. I blinked, wondering why Trent so quickly went back on what he had said, but figured he was either scared of the suits at Interscope, or realized it would revive his and Manson's idiotic bitch fight.

Opening it up, I noticed all the album and booklet art was there, scanned for the viewer's consumption. The cover was nothing special, with "Marilyn Manson" on it in the same font it was on the Holy Wood art, and the background also being the black and brown Holy Wood background. I figured that made sense, as it was supposed to be a part of the era. However, rather than jawless Manson-as-Jesus from the Holy Wood art, there was a 1930s factory, with three smoke towers. It was a brick structure, the bricks crumbing and the windows shattered and sometimes boarded up. It was vandalized, and the boarded up door had a strange symbol on it. A less obsessed fan wouldn't have figured it out, but it was quite obvious to me that it was another occultic angel summoning/banishment symbol, like those used in the Antichrist Superstar era. I thought having a factory on The Factory was a tad unoriginal, but I couldn't come up with a better idea.

Of course, I was giddy to see the rest of the art. It focused on John 5 and Marilyn Manson, as this was solely their own side project. There was a realsitic painting of Manson as JFK, an idea used several times in the past, and John 5 as the sprinting Secret Service agent that he was in the Coma White video, as well as "The Fool" tarot card from Holy Wood. Unlike Coma White, however, there was no death parade, no Jackie O, and in fact, nobody else. JFK/Manson was more decayed, an eye hanging out and missing his jaw, as if it had rotted off. I smiled, happy to see a call back and connection to the Holy Wood cover, as Manson had compared the treatment of JFK to the treatment of Jesus many times before. John 5 was holding the skull fragment, his makeup streaked with tears, his suit getting stained with white makeup. His blonde hair looked unwashed and raggity, rather than the well-cared for look it usually had. All in all, the art was brilliant. It was typical classic Manson stuff. So, I listened to the album.

It was what I had expected. The guitars were clearly more controlled by John 5, as the sound was quite similar to his own works, but with a bit of obvious touches from Manson, including several acoustic tracks. One song opened with the same guitar from Pistol Whipped (a song released in 2012, and this was from 2000), and I laughed, as once again, Manson recycled his tossed out work. By the time I was done, I decided to check Facebook. When I opened it, I noticed I had a new message, from a person named "The Factory". It told me that Trent was not supposed to have uploaded the album, and it had been taken care of. I was warned that I was not to upload or spread the album, and that I was the only person that had downloaded it, so they would know it was me. I figured Manson was behind the account and decided to obey his wishes, because angering your idol doesn't make much sense. I hid it from Spotify so that it would never accidentally appear on my recently listened to, and made sure to only listen to it on VLC media player and my MP3 player, which I did at least several times daily. A few days later, I got home and it was gone from my computer.

I was upset, and admittedly shaken. Either someone hacked my computer, or someone broke in to my house and deleted the files. The damp spots on my carpet from someone walking in the snow and then inside proved it was the second one. I thought to myself, glad that whoever was behind the break in didn't know it was on my MP3 player, but decided not to call the police, as I wouldn't be able to prove anything. There was no sign of forced entry, and damp carpet was hardly proof. Sitting down, I thought to myself, wondering why anyone would be so interested in supressing the album. It's not like there hadn't been many leaks in the past, and it wasn't a career destroying work. In fact, it was quite good. I hadn't listened to much else besides for it recently.

Pissed, I decided to message "The Factory", asking why he broke in and deleted it off of my computer, but the account had been deleted. I swore in anger and decided to listen to the album again, putting in my earbuds and relaxing as I browsed the Internet. I decided to make a few backups on my various external memory devices, a few CDs stashed in odd places, and of course, kept my MP3 player on me at all times. I didn't want to ever lose The Factory. Sometimes, I'd go to bed listening to it, just letting the songs, already familiar, wash over me and lull me to sleep. I never had any nightmares, only pleasant dreams.

I was dying to talk about the album, but I didn't want to anger anyone with access to my locked home. So, I kept my mouth shut, and isolated myself from people so that I didn't expose the album to the world. It was beautiful, a perfect comfort for my loneleness. As I lost friends, I listened more. For the longest time, I had believed instrumentals were lesser than music with vocals, as instrumentals couldn't say anything. But, as I listened more and more, I could feel the emotion put into every note, every beat of a drum or pluck of a guitar string. The Factory had become my life, and I had begun to live in The Factory.

While listening one day, I passed out, a combination of dehydration, a lack of sleep and starvation. I woke up in a white room to a beeping sound, which I realized I was my own heart rate. I could feel the tubes coming out of my arm, the needles imbedded in me, nurishing me. I shuttered and peeled my eyes open. I was in a hospital. Still extremely exhausted, I fell asleep again. When I awoke, a man interviewed me, but about what, I couldn't remember. The next few days were groggy, but I finally was able to find out what was going on. I asked the man, who had returned, what happened. He told me "You were found nearly dead, listening to static. A search of your house found a bunch of CDs and a few external memory sticks with a bunch of tracks consisting of static, with unique names, and a bunch of blank pictures. The folder was called "The Factory", and was with your music. It seems you had a psychotic break and believed this static to be music, and had for quite some time. When I interviewed you, it seems that you had made the songs and images up from things you had seen and listened to before." While he talked, I hummed. When he asked what I was humming, I told him it was just a song I loved. I'm still keeping my word. Nobody else has ever heard The Factory.

Author's information
Well, that was my first creepypasta. The lost albums talked about in the pasta are in fact real. The "From Hell" soundtrack was replaced with a more "traditional" score, and the Celebritarian era is in fact an aborted era. The Factory was a John 5 and Marilyn Manson instrumental album that was never released, made around the same time as Holy Wood. Seed Zero really is Trent's Pirate Bay account. However, this never happened. I tried to avoid cliches and I hope that worked out well. PosthumanHeresy (talk) 13:01, February 23, 2014 (UTC)