Marilyn "the God of Fuck" Manson

[alan nagsworth]

It's nearly 4:00am. I was meant to go out to a Helena Hauff gig tonight. I had hangover anxiety and I sacked it off. I stayed at home, got pissed with my best friend and did crosswords. We didn't listen to Marilyn Manson. But now, everyone's gone to bed, I'm alone and listening to "Mechanical Animals". And here I sit, feeling compelled to spit into this void of a forum about one of my all-time biggest heroes. Here he is then, our Brian, my Brian, at Johnny Depp levels of alcohol-fuelled dribble, indulgent, bloated and miles past his prime, and I want to talk about how important he was as a pop star.

At his best, Marilyn Manson was a genius artist. Unparalleled in his field as a satirist, an absurdist, and a provocative rock god. He had his designs on exactly how to be a button-pushing bellend with "Portrait of an American Family" but it wasn't until his second album "Antichrist Superstar" that his potential was realised, and fuck me, that's some potential. AC is one of the greatest albums I've ever heard. I'm on about top five, seriously. It's a stone cold masterpiece and fuck all comes close to it. As much of a cold, stark, harrowing and evocative portrayal of the perils of fame as "Ziggy Stardust", only repackaged for the modern age. 1996. That album's ugly, dirt-under-the-fingernails metaphors and ritualistic mantras are ones that have stuck with me my entire life and they resound as loudly now as they ever fucking will.

"When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed."

"Prick your finger, it is done. The moon will now eclipse the sun. The angel has spread its wings. The time has come for bitter things."

"If you are suffering, know that I have betrayed you."

Trent Reznor's impeccable production, one of his finest works to date, heightens the fucking blistering, terrifying and occasionally bonkers mood of the album, and there's not a single duff track on it. It is honestly impeccable. Even now, over fifteen years since I discovered it, it scared the living Jesus out of me.

From there, we stroll into "Mechanical Animals", again very reflective but with a decidedly more glam rock tinge to it. Again, this is a remarkable album. It's not quite as good as its predecessor but fucking hell, it's pretty close, especially with its change in style. Strung out and miserable songs like "Disassociative", "The Speed of Pain", "Fundamentally Loathsome" and "Coma White" are completely as the artwork would have you imagine: grey, numb and staring listlessly at oneself in a mirror. Fucking brilliant. If AC's a 10/10 (which it is) then MA's easily an 8.5.

To suggest that Manson was inspired by Bowie is an understatement. Manson was a protege in so many ways. Even if he didn't fulfil the same legacy in terms of longevity, he made up for it in the relatively small amount of content he provided. Reznor says that in his prime he was "the smartest guy in the room". His interviews from that era certainly back that up. He was an informed, smart and conscious musician. He also had a fucking tremendous voice that was vitriolic, awful, utterly dopesick and completely beautiful. Conviction. Most bands have it. Not everyone has it in as many fucking spades as Mazza. This cunt has a goddamn message and he was not about to stand by and make sure some other hapless fucker delivered it. At his peak, albeit a little too brief, he was the greatest of his generation and he shouldn't be forgotten. A truly remarkable pop icon.

I'll conclude the post with his all-time greatest lyric: "Your world is an ashtray. We burn and coil like cigarettes. The more you cry, your ashes turn to mud."

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

He was great as Paul Pfeiffer on "The Wonder Years".

[bgmnts]

Think he's a bit shit but the Bo Selecta bit on him was a giggle.

I like the Resident Evil film soundtrack.

[iamcoop]

He made some great stuff. Made some absolute drivel as well. I probably listen to the last tour on Earth the most, that's an excellent live album.

A lot of his lyrics make me cringe a bit now but as a 13 year old it blew my mind. I saw him live about 10 years ago and he was absolutely abysmal. I wish I'd have got to see him in his ACS/MA era.

[Norton Canes]

Helena Hauff is great.

[Shaky]

I dunno... Antichrist and Mechanical were fun albums at the time but for me that was down to their consistently strong tunes and nothing about the man beyond the music. He could string a sentence together in public, sure, but then he'd get his anus out at gigs to really show how genuine he was. When it comes to legacy, Manson has proved to be more Alice Cooper than David Bowie which is, y'know, totally fine and everything.

Reznor, for all his ups and downs over the years, has more talent and authenticity in his little finger than Brian's got in his... anus. Even Bowie recognised him as a kindred spirit, although with old Dave there was always that musical magpie element to be fair.

[QDRPHNC]

I find Manson and Reznor frustrating in similar ways. Both musically brilliant, but not so good at writing lyrics. I can see why you like the ones you highlighted, Alan, but for every Prick your finger / it is done, there's a God is in the TV. Anyway, it's frustrating because in interviews they both come off as far smarter, more interesting and more charming than their clumsy wordsmithing would suggest.

All that being said though, I'm 41 years old, and on one of those increasingly rare days where I'm as pissed off at the world as a 15 year old who's been told he can't go out with his friends tonight, a couple of hours of very loud MM still straightens me right out.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

'The God of Fuck All', more like.

[drummersaredeaf]

I'm a bit of a NIN superfan, but Nags is right in highlighting how good Brian was at the top of his game. AC and MM are both great records, with AC in particular being utterly ferocious and utterly nihilistic. I would have loved to have seen them on this tour. Video footage from the time reveals a man with all the cocaine bravado of Are Brave Tommy banging on a journalists door at 5am - a thousand yard stare, and seemingly utterly convinced that he has the power to bring about the end of days by prancing round a stage screaming with his arse hanging out. Highlights include Deformography, Mister Superstar (blast of a chorus), Angel With Scabbed Wings, Reflecting God...

MA was the album that came out when I was getting into this kind of thing and retains a special place in my heart. Recall thinking Holywood was on a par with the other two, but in hindsight is not a patch on them. Have not been interested since GAoG, which I thought was by-the-numbers cag. Think there is a hint of osmosis about Manson's creative process that might determine the quality of the output - Reznor, Corgan, Twiggy ... Maybe I just don't like John 5, Tim Skold or Tyler Bates.

[chveik]

he was a silly goose, I'll give you that.

[alan nagsworth]

This is definitely one of the more cohesive and informed posts I've written drunk at 4am with little recollection of doing so. Quite pleased with that.

[Kane Jones]

Mechanical Animals is magnificent. ACS was a bit too shouty with derivative riffs for me as a fan of more melodic rock. MA was just what I needed in 1998 when it felt like the kind of rock I liked was a dead duck. Layered music, emotionally fraught lyrics, glammy guitars, Bowie vibe. I thought it was the fucking business. Holywood was OK, but everything he's done since has been boring. His book was fucking excellent though. Nearly as good as the Crue's The Dirt in the sordid stakes, and far more verbose. Maybe not quite as entertaining. I do like ol' Bri though.

[Brundle-Fly]

The Dope Show was the dope.

[alan nagsworth]

Holy Wood is definitely only about 40% good material, at a push. The best songs on there (tracks 2-5 make up most of them, hilariously) are what I'd consider to be as good at anything on Mechanical Animals, but so much of it is trying, or just downright boring. He tried to make another concept album but its thin-on-the-ground analogous content runs out of ideas quite quickly. "Coma Black" indeed, what a cop-out! "In the Shadow of the Valley of Death" is a good song but it's basically identical to "The Speed of Pain", "Lamb of God" starts off with such potential but the repeating of that dull chorus in the second half is galling, and "Burning Flag" is just plain awful writing and a complete production mess, as is "King Kill 33" which is also one of the biggest Nine Inch Nails rip-offs I've ever heard.

I have a fair bit of time for Portrait of an American Family and Smells Like Children but neither of those albums are anywhere close to perfect. It's just those two albums that followed that happen to be some of the most spot-on modernising of shock-pop music. He fucking nailed it.

[SteveDave]

I am aghast that adult humans listen to Marilyn Manson. Isn't this for kids?

I remember liking "The Dope Show" when I saw him do it on some MTV awards show and he'd gathered round some nice black people to sing the chorus. I bought the CD single and discovered (to my memory- I listened to it once I think) that it was whiter than all of Sweden in a blizzard.

Also finding out that the God Is In The TV website is named after a song of his brings a chuckle to my face.

[maett]

Once saw the video for his cover of Tainted Love and felt embarrassed for him. Oooh he was so subversive. Was impressed when he appeared in Eastbound and Down though.

[the ouch cube]

Antichrist was a fave of mine alongside Astro Creep 2000 as far as "this sort of thing" went, the latter for it's bizarre beat poetry and Mad Max cyborg-biker vibe, the former because it was one of the very few 'apocalyptic' albums that actually sounded like an apocalypse. I was pleased as hell when I revisited it and found that, far from being cringe, it retained a good 80% of its teeth.

At his best (AS, MA, Holy Wood), he was a kind of Gothic Jello Biafra, alas, nowadays he's more like Blackie Lawless. SAD!

[DukeDeMondo]

Great OP Nags. Brought a lot of nostalgic sort of warmth to settle upon me.

I was a huge fan of the man / the band around AC and MA, although Smells Like Children was the first thing that really grabbed me. I don't think I'd ever heard an album like that before. Scared the fuck out of me and thrilled me to the back of my being. I didn't like Holy Wood very much at all, just felt like the best bits of the previous two records all over again but shit (even though the cover art / inlay was fucking superb), and ...Grotesque was just a fucking chore, and I haven't liked anything MM-related that I've heard since. But most everything from Portrait... to Mechanical Animals is just fantastic.

If you have Netflix or some other way of accessing it, I'd highly recommend the third episode of the recent HBO documentary series The Defiant Ones, all about Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records, among other things, and Dr Dre of Dr Dre, among other things. It's a brilliant series anyway (barring maybe two thirds of the final episode, which devotes far more time to the creation of Beats Headphones and Apple Music and stuff like this than I could really be bothered with), but the third episode is especially electric, and I'd say you'd enjoy it enormously.

That episode in particular focuses primarily on Interscope picking up Dre's The Chronic, and thereby inviting Suge Knight and the Death Row crowd into their orbit, whilst Iovine is also courting Trent Reznor and, eventually, Marilyn Manson. It's a fucking brilliant hour (or maybe hour and a bit) of telly. Reznor and Manson up to all their antics on the one hand, inciting this and that, by the chat, causing no end of headaches, whilst on the other hand Knight and the rest are busy getting arrested or beating balls out of people or murdering or being murdered.

Some of the genuinely terrifying shit that the Suge lads bring down does make Brian wiping his arse with pages from the Bible seem a bit silly, by comparison, but whatever. Can't recommend it enough.

[alan nagsworth]

I am aghast that adult humans listen to Marilyn Manson. Isn't this for kids?

Nah, up your jacksy, mate. Mazza himself would likely never deny the upfront absurdity and theatricality of his act (well, he probably would nowadays, where he seems to take himself far too seriously to compensate for his complete lack of remaining talent), don't be so cynical! At his best, he was always disarmingly smart with a great sense of humour in public appearances. If George Romero in his heyday can be lauded for his messages on consumerism whilst chucking blood up the walls in the most sensationalist fashion known to popular culture then there's no reason Marilyn Manson can't too.

Once saw the video for his cover of Tainted Love and felt embarrassed for him. Oooh he was so subversive. Was impressed when he appeared in Eastbound and Down though.

I don't really see why you think he's being subversive in that video. It's featured on the soundtrack for, and includes footage and characters from, "Not Another Teen Movie". The whole thing's a pastiche, it's the most stereotypical music video you'd have expected to see in 2001. Is it a good video in retrospect? Is his cover of the song any good? Both questionable. Is it absolutely spot on for its time as well as looking like loads of daft fun for all involved? Without a doubt.

[alan nagsworth]

Great OP Nags. Brought a lot of nostalgic sort of warmth to settle upon me.

...

If you have Netflix or some other way of accessing it, I'd highly recommend the third episode of the recent HBO documentary series The Defiant Ones, all about Jimmy Iovine of Interscope Records, among other things, and Dr Dre of Dr Dre, among other things.

Thanks for the kind words, and cheers also for the heads up on that, as I'd have no idea of its existence otherwise. Might cop it tonight.

Whilst we're on the topic of Oor Bry's cover songs, for the record I'd like to share this wonderful little rendition he did of George Hamilton IV's John D. Loudermilk's "A Rose and a Baby Ruth" from the Mechanical Animals sessions.

His cover of I Put A Spell On You is a fucking belter as well, much better to my ears than his version of "Sweet Dreams" (both were on Smells Like Children).

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

If George Romero in his heyday can be lauded for his messages on consumerism whilst chucking blood up the walls in the most sensationalist fashion known to popular culture then there's no reason Marilyn Manson can't too.

Well yeah, but Dawn of the Dead is an overrated load of old toot.

[Chriddof]

I wouldn't go that far, but I think it's fair to say that Dawn Of The Dead's satirical moments are fairly basic, at least viewed now. I'd say a similar thing happens with Manson's stuff in general. I do like The Beautiful People, though.

[ToneLa]

Door to Door Shock

[kngen]

Boyd Rice for tweens.

[SteveDave]

George Romero wasn't 50 and still showing his arse to shock "the straights" though.

[madhair60]

Marilyn Manson is fucking good mate. I even like the first half of Eat Me, Drink Me

[rasta-spouse]

Have to say, that song The Beautiful People plus the amazing video - at the time it felt like something so new that transcended the usual goth stuff.

Although Mechanical Animals was a good tribute album to Bowie, I don' t think he ever bettered his work with Reznor.

[drummersaredeaf]

Marilyn Manson is fucking good mate. I even like the first half of Eat Me, Drink Me

Maybe you're looking back through heart cunted glasses.

[Jerzy Bondov]

Another big NIN fan here but I love Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. I went into Spotify the other week to have a go on Antichrist Superstar and I was amazed at how shit his album art has got over the years. I mean. Let's look. Something to do isn't it.


Portrait of an American Family (1994)
Funny little puppets and a cheesy horror movie font. You know what you're getting with this album and you know it's going to be well good. Manson made the puppets himself out of papier mache and human hair.


Antichrist Superstar (1996)
This is extremely my shit. I still love this now-very 90s aesthetic, with the serif fonts and the scratchy grain. Manson looks scary as fuck as 'the worm' here. You bring this album home and your mum is going to worry about you. It looks evil. Peak Manson. Amazing. Paul Brown done this art.


Mechanical Animals (1998)
This is a very deliberate attempt to draw a clear line under AC. Completely different and it works. Paul Brown again. It's amazing isn't it? Sexy and creepy. This would definitely make your mum very uncomfortable, in a different way to AC. Johnny Depp owns Brian's tits now says Wikipedia.


Holy Wood (2000)
An obvious shift away from the Mechanical Animals look and sound, back towards grimy horror. Here's Manson as Jesus with his jaw ripped off. Paul Brown on design duties once more. This cover is about martyrdom. The text at the bottom is JFK's autopsy report and the font is the old Disneyland one. That's right mum. Get a fucking load of that.


The Golden Age of Grotesque (2003)
Paul Brown is off now, say hello to Gottfried Helnwein. I like this cover. It's a bit Captain Howdy off of The Exorcist and therefore it's scary. But it's not as dense as the Paul Brown stuff. The band is falling apart at this point and the golden years are very much over but there's still something in there.


Eat Me, Drink Me (2007)
What the fuck has happened. A bloke standing by a window with all blood on it. That's good enough now, is it? Your mum isn't going to be scared by this. She's going to laugh at you, and she'd be right to. This is no good Brian. No good at all.


The High End of Low (2009)
Brian. What are you doing. What has happened. This really is absolute dog shit. Look at the lettering. I mean for fuck's sake. Glowtube halo? Are you taking the piss?


Born Villain (2012)
Just look at this. For God's sake just look at it. Remember the Paul Brown era when the album art was full of little references and hidden messages, when it all fed into the album and the lyrics and the whole thing was just a great package of scary, confrontational, exciting gubbins? And now it's a high contrast picture of the side of Brian's face. And that's supposed to be good enough. Surely he must have one more good cover in him? Surely?


The Pale Emperor (2015)
Way better. I know it's just a blurry man but this is so much more like it. It's a bit creepy looking. It's like he's doing a character again. Is this album actually good? I haven't listened to it. I might. The CD is treated with heat sensitive ink which means it goes in your CD player black but comes out white. Very cool. NIN already did it (Year Zero, 2007), but still very cool. I doubt NIN invented it; does anyone know of any other albums like that?
Anyway, isn't it nice to see a Manson album that doesn't look like shit after all these years. Good to have you back Brian. What have you got next?


Heaven Upside Down (2017)
for fucks sake

[popcorn]

I only know two Marilyn Manson songs and one of them's because it was in The Matrix.

What's wrong with the line "god is in the TV"? I quite like that bit.