Lest We Forget: The Best Of

Lest We Forget: The Best Of is a greatest hits album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on September 28, 2004, by Interscope Records. The album was conceived by the band's eponymous vocalist as a "farewell compilation", and was originally going to feature a duet with Shirley Manson of Garbage. Upon its completion, neither singer was satisfied with the duet, and it remains unreleased. Instead, the band recorded a cover of Depeche Mode's "Personal Jesus" (1989), which became the only new track on the album and was released as a single. The deluxe version of the album included a bonus DVD containing sixteen music videos, one of which was the previously unreleased uncensored version of the music video for "Saint" (2004).

Lest We Forget: The Best Of received mostly positive reviews from music critics, several of whom complimented its track listing. The compilation's commercial performance exceeded expectations in the United States, where it sold over 78,000 copies in its first week of release and had sold over a million copies as of late 2010. It was also successful internationally, peaking within the top 10 of national record charts in Austria, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The band promoted the album with their "Against All Gods Tour".

Background and release

The band's eponymous vocalist conceived Lest We Forget: The Best Of as a "farewell compilation", but not a greatest hits album, as "I was never really a top-40 artist." Explaining his frame of mind when he made the album, Manson said, "You get frustrated sometimes when you know that your heart is really buried in your art, and you know more success equals being more mediocre. So you have to redefine success, and you can't compete with people who don't do what you do."

Initially, the album was going to include a duet between the band's frontman and Garbage vocalist Shirley Manson. After the cover's completion, Marilyn admitted that he "wasn't in the best frame of mind when I did it". Shirley commented on the cover: "It's really cool but neither of us felt comfortable putting it on our records so I don't know if it will ever come out. I hope it does. Our voices sound fantastic in a very Beauty and the Beast kind of way." Manson said that he wanted to cover "Personal Jesus" because he found Depeche Mode's music hypnotic, sexy and inspirational. Copies of Lest We Forget contain a booklet with 29 pictures of the band's frontman, while a limited-edition version of the record includes a bonus DVD containing 16 of the band's music videos.

| rev2 = Rolling Stone

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| rev3 = Spin

| rev3score = B+

In Spin, Chuck Klosterman called the compilation "[f]ucking awesome" and said "there are only about ten compelling metal acts out there right now, and Marilyn Manson is three of them." The Chicago Maroon Matt Zakosek opined "It would be easy to write a pithy, sarcastic review deriding Manson for his over-the-top showmanship-but sometime in the midst of all that devilish preening and posturing, he found the time to make some pretty good music."

Richard Abowitz of Rolling Stone stated that Lest We Forget "includes all of [Manson's] essential pied-piper calls to alienated suburban youth" and that "Manson's mix of fetish, goth, hedonism and metal still jells". Monica S. Kuebler of Exclaim! said "if you've been holding onto your hard-earned bones waiting for that one essential Marilyn Manson collection (without the filler), you may want to proceed directly to the nearest record store and turn those bones over immediately."

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic found the album's omission of "Dope Hat" (1994), "Man That You Fear" (1996) and "I Don't Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me)" (1998) "curious". He added that "Nevertheless, [Lest We Forget] has enough of the hits to make this worthwhile for the casual fans, as well as those listeners who never wanted to admit that [the band's] late-'90s alt-rock radio staples were guilty pleasures." Writing for PopMatters, Lance Teegarden described the band's cover of "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (1995), "The Beautiful People" (1996) and "Mobscene" (2003) as "[a] few choice hits on a far too lengthy and same-sounding best-of."

Commercial performance

Industry forecasters predicted the album was on course to debut on the Billboard 200 with first week sales of around 60,000 units. It went on to debut at number nine on the chart, selling 78,715 copies on its first week. It would spend a total of 27 weeks on the chart, and was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in October 2005 for shipments in excess of 500,000 units.

| title1 = Next Motherfucker

| note1 = Remix

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| length1 = 4:47

| title2 = The Not-So-Beautiful People

| music2 = Ramirez

| length2 = 6:11

| title3 = The Horrible People

| music3 = Ramirez

| length3 = 5:13

| title4 = Tourniquet

| note4 = Prosthetic Dance Mix) (Radio Edit

| music4 =

| length4 = 4:10

| title5 = I Don't Like the Drugs

| note5 = Danny Saber Remix

| music5 =

| length5 = 5:18

| title6 = Working Class Hero

| music6 = John Lennon

| length6 = 3:39

| title7 = The Fight Song

| note7 = Slipknot Remix

| music7 = John 5

| length7 = 3:50

| title8 = Mobscene

| note8 = Sauerkraut Remix – Rammstein Mix

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| length8 = 3:16

| total_length = 36:24