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 The Golden Age of Grotesque I was reading some of the comments at Amazon UK while setting up the link that is currently on the index page of this alleged website. The Golden Age of Grotesque is my currently album of choice but I saw it being abused by a small but vocal segment of Manson fandom. They said he’d sold out. He’d become commercial. They longed for the olden days of Antichrist Superstar. To those naysayers I say balls, balls and more balls. Aside from not finding much (if anything) that I like about Antichrist Superstar, I find this whole attitude typical of musical fans. People like to claim things as their own and dismiss them as commercialised when other people (especially if it’s a lot of people) start to like it. I dare say those of us who like a creaking old TV show will feel something similar next year when the new series starts and it (hopefully) achieves a new popularity. They weren’t there during the dark times so we will resent them. In Manson’s case the argument fails rather because Manson was arguably more popular during his less accessible phase. His status as America’s Most Notorious has long since been superseded by Eminem and now Janet Jackson. I know little of American culture (if such an oxymoron can be permitted) but when Marilyn Manson is advertising Coke (the drink that is) then I’ll listen to people saying he’s sold out. Although I’m still haunted by the site of his black and wiry frame on the stage at Top of the Pops. Don’t ask me how I came to see it – I’m not aware of having seen TotP since the 80s when the charts mattered. But I saw it if it actually happened. The fans whose opinions so interested me seemed to be equating change with selling out. Manson has changed since his (and I’m saying him even though both the band and the lead singer are called Marilyn Manson) early days. I may be hideously naïve but I actually believe that he is an artist who records and performs to express something he wants to express verbally or musically. He hasn’t started to make songs rather than rants set to random noises to annoy his hardcore fans (although "Baboon Rape Party" is two and a half minutes of verbal collage). I think Golden Age of Grotesque has managed to be the definitive Manson album. It merges the warped electronica of Mechanical Animals with the fury of Holy Wood. The mind that could produce "The Fight Song" and "Great Big White World" has managed to blend the two at last. But on to the substance of Golden Age of Grotesque. My pick of the tracks and some very Manson lyrics. "This is the New Shit" Babble babble bitch bitch A hard rocking rant against the culture of new things that are familiar even before we’ve heard them. The fraudulent facades adopted by modern musicians cannot hide the fact that everything they’ve done has been done before but we’re all too stupid to realise it. Are you motherfuckers ready
"Use Your Fist and Not Your Mouth" This is the black collar song This is Manson’s mocking election address. Those who see him as demonic and a bad influence on their children should be blaming themselves for breeding children too ignorant to appreciate irony. It’s a rocking good anthem for a generation which needs to be forced to get up off its arses and do something. Of course, it would be unwise for said generation to actually get up and do something if they aren’t clever enough to see that the song is a metaphor rather than a one dimensional call for violence.
"The Bright Young Things" We know who we are and what we want
to say Perhaps this is Manson trying a little too hard to say that he’s not sold out. It obviously bothers him a little but he can take solace from his decline in popularity. We set fashion, not follow That magnificent coupling says it all really about the modern pop music business and Mr Manson’s opinion of it. Stop the song and remember what you
used to be It’s really getting to him isn’t it? The fact that the song is so good while being so self indulgent is a small but satisfying miracle.
"The Golden Age of Grotesque" We're the low Art Gloominati, and we
aim to depress This is a song in which the invented words are masked by the extremely slurred delivery. Looking at the lyrics it is Manson setting out his stall. Explaining the concept behind the Golden Age of Grotesque. It’s almost Damien Hurst set to music. In its own way it is every bit as pretentious as the art world and every bit as willing to toy with its audience. Giving little hints and clues as to what it all means and then sniggering patronisingly when the listener gets it all wrong.
"Vodevil" This isn't music and we're not a
band It’s self pity all the way with possibly the best track on the album. The title, a clever (or obvious) merging of Vaudeville and Devil, shows the two sides of the Golden Age of Grotesque concept. Imagine if the lord of darkness put on a stage show. He’d pick Manson to perform because he’s the most hated man in America. Call me a failure He’s perhaps trying a little too hard to paint himself as the victim of the piece but at least he doesn’t warble about boyfriend troubles like so many modern singers. This isn't a show, this is my
fucking life And I am. This is a marvellous album – one of those where you’d end up putting most of the tracks onto a Best Of compilation CD if you could. Maybe I’m too old and too fundamentally placid to be a proper Marilyn Manson fan but I like him never the less. In an age where everyone from Britney Spears to Limp Bizkit to Will Young all try to conform to the record company’s idea of an idealised and worshipable version of their intended audience, Manson goes the opposite way. He almost seems to try to embody a stylised version of his audience’s fears and he seems to be succeeding. It might be worrying to his accountants that one of those fears given human form is that he isn’t the Marilyn Manson that some of his fans think they remember. We, the majority, are better for it.
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