EP · Marilyn Manson
Smells Like Children by Marilyn Manson
Smells Like Children is an EP by Marilyn Manson, released in 1995. 2 songs from it have charted on rock radio countdowns, with 27 countdown appearances in total. The biggest is “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”, on 26 lists with a best position of #3.
Smells Like Children, Marilyn Manson's first EP, crawled out on Trent Reznor's Nothing label and Interscope on October 24, 1995, and it's a queasy scrapbook from the road. It started life as a simple remix single for "Dope Hat", then kept mutating as engineer Dave Ogilvie, Nine Inch Nails live keyboardist Charlie Clouser and the band piled on fresh material. Every idea on it was hatched during the long tour behind Portrait of an American Family, and the whole grimy thing is haunted by the Child Catcher, the villain from the 1968 film musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It's also the first Manson record with Twiggy Ramirez on bass and Ginger Fish on drums, alongside Daisy Berkowitz's guitar and Madonna Wayne Gacy's keyboards. The hook that dragged it into the mainstream was a slow, sinister crawl through Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", whose video became an MTV fixture, and the EP went platinum.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
Songs from Smells Like Children on radio countdowns
| # | Song | Strength | Lists | Best | #1s | Years |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) | 26 | #3 | – | 1995–2023 | |
| 2 | Dance of the Dope Hats | 1 | #830 | – | 1999 |
Only songs that appear on at least one countdown are listed. Release data from MusicBrainz.