The Golden Age of Grotesque

MY CD collection can boast the whole back catalogue of Marilyn Manson albums, but this one just isn't up to the impeccable standard of the band's previous offerings. 'Anti-Christ Superstar' possibly represents the peak of Manson's colourful career, although I personally enjoyed the stylistic key-change that came with 'Mechanical Animals' and, perhaps lesser so, 'Holy Wood'. But my criticism does not simply relate to his musical output, either, despite the absence of popular MM guitarist Twiggy Ramirez.

Timed to correspond with last autumn's Hollywood art exhibition featuring Manson's own unique paintings (including one of Adolf Hitler as a naked hermaphrodite), 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' seems to have travelled halfway along the road of controversy and then lost all sense of direction. I am, of course, referring to the thematic nature of this album. MM's use of SS-style lettering and Weimar-period Cabaret, replete with black uniforms and videographic images of chorus-line girls in top hat and tails, engenders a half-hearted Nazi kitsch which never quite prevails in the way that Manson may have been hoping for originally. Indeed, although MM have used fascistic imagery in the past, here they never seem quite sure whether the prevailing theme should be 'thirties Germany, 'thirties America or the post-industrial vanity that often permeates their egotistical and parodied jaunts into a twisted mirror-image of modern society. As a package, however, the special edition CD is great value for money and contains two bonus tracks and a free DVD.

The opening track, 'Thaeter', plods along like a spasticated elephant in a projection room, injecting a surrealistic atmosphere before stopping abruptly. Then comes the amusingly-titled 'This Is The New Shit', a deliberate barrage of nonsensical hype gleaned from a jingoistic lexicon. This is MM's paradoxical introduction, a sarcastic diet of dribbling jargon for the passive listener who expects - nay, demands - to be entertained: 'Babble babble bitch bitch / Rebel rebel party party / Sex sex sex and don't forget the violence / Blah blah blah got your lovey-dovey sad-and-lonely / Stick your stupid slogan in: / Everybody sing along'. Yes, it's meaningless drivel - but it's meant to be. Here we have MM in a frenzy of satire, commenting on the worthlessness of the modern pop industry and its formulaic regurgitation. At first one imagines a burnt-out MM staring at his notepad thinking 'What the fuck am I going to dish out to the masses this time?', but there is far more to it than that. It makes the listener question his own motives. This, remember, is an artistic release: 'More than just a record'. MM represents the thunderflash of dynamism and individual action. The masses are merely looking on in awestruck wonder. No wonder, therefore, that during a recent interview with 'Rock Sound' magazine he stressed the importance of being creative. That's the whole point. Passivity is weakness. It is this which gives MM his strength. He feeds on it.

The next track, 'Mobscene', blends 'thirties-style mob-rule with the seediness of the gangster's moll. A sickly-sweet chorus of shrill broads in high heels and suspenders emit an antithetical cheerleader's ode to what MM is keen to convey as the Wildean free-spirit: 'Be obscene, be be obscene'. But once again, the themes overlap and you are left wondering what the hell Oscar Wilde has to do with the likes of Al Capone and Baby-Face Nelson. 'Doll-Dagga Buzz-Buzz Ziggety-Zag' seems to confirm everything 'This Is The New Shit' warned us against. It's jingoistic in the extreme, but - as you would expect - so annoying catchy that you're instantly reminded of just how bad the nineteen-eighties really were. Its hotchpotch of welded liguistics read like an amalgation of youth genres, which at least accounts for MM's cross-generational and trans-cultic appeal. At first sight, 'Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth' appears to be in favour of an all-American hate campaign, although when you read between the lines the streak of anti-Americanism that runs through several of the previous albums (as well as on videos like 'The Fight Song' and 'Sweet Dreams') is still present: 'When I get elected / I'll wipe the white of your house'. Musically, however, MM plagiarise themselves and even resemble the earlier 'Mobscene' with their repetitive use of 'This is the ...' as a choratic intro. The title track, on the other hand, toys with expressions like 'dirty word reich', 'scabaret sacrilegends' and 'low art gloominati' in order to construct an illicit Weimar putrescence in which MM The Artist styles himself upon a subversive latter-day Bauhaus. In '(s)AINT', on the other hand, a more abrasive and self-confident MM declares: 'I'm not an artist I'm a fucking work of art'. Wallowing in his own 'perfekt'-ion like the evil Queen in Snow White, this is definitely one of the better tracks on the album. 'Ka-boom Ka-boom' isn't bad, either. Focussing on the self-centred arrogance of the average rock star, the song unfolds like a spikier version of Bruce Dickinson's Tattooed Millionaire'. Once again, however, the two-syllable chorus is all-too simplistic.

There is doubt that 'Slutgarden' is the best track on the whole album. A cross between a pop song and a metal battering-ram, its well-crafted lyrics hint at the futility of TV culture and the unreality of the pornographic industry: 'I'm a VCR funeral of / Dead memory waste and / My smile is a chainlink fence / That I have put up'. Given that word reconstruction plays a big role on this album, MM's use of the word 'thee' also gives a cursory nod to Genesis P-Orridge and Coum Transmissions (later Psychick TV). Following in the footsteps of William Burroughs, Coum were among the first to use the 'cut-up' system to create a new language and thus create new possibilities outside of the verbal strangehold of the linguistic norm. It is, I'm certain, a subtle acknowledgement for those 'in the know'. Who knows, perhaps the Devil is imbued with a little humility after all? Mind you, once the importance of words has been explored they disappear altogether. The vocals are still there, but the tenth track comes without a title and is represented by the Ace of Spades symbol. Here and there, the vocals are rather similar to those of Kurt Cobain (Nirvana). MM duets with one of his guest vocalists, too, although in this case I'm not sure if it's Mindy or Monique (thank Satan, for sleeve notes). The results are truly excellent, but perhaps a little upsetting for the feminist lobby: 'We bend our knees at the altar of my ego'. Then 'Para-noir' goes one step further. It's a cynical, hate-filled mantra in which male and female list their reasons for fucking each other (over) in both a sexual and Machiavellian sense. Another very good song which, contrary to the lie-ridden deceit which characterises our age, reveals the true motives behind human behaviour.

'The Bright Young Things' is another fist in the face of consumer society: 'We don't rebel to sell / It just suits us well'. There are some interesting one-liners in this one, 'We'll be the worms in your apple pie' being a typical broadside towards the 'fifties America of John Wayne, Walt Disney and patronising morality. And there's a nihilistic streak, too: 'Perpetual rebellion with absolutely no cause'. Then we plunge headlong into 'Better of Two Evils'. This is MM's riff-induced glorification of his own scapegoated persona in the eyes of America's right-wing fundamentalists, although he inexplicably quotes them as calling him 'whitey'. The sheer distaste which he leaves festering on the fetid breath of bourgeois America obviously crosses racial boundaries. He is whitey to the whites and nigger to the niggers. A universal anathema. 'Vodevil' begins with a swaying piano and becomes a slow-rock grind, but completely lacks any real quality when it comes to the lyrics. Base and simplistic expressions like 'We're 5 middle fingers on a motherfucking hand' might impress a few pseudo-rebellious goths in between media seminars, but it's been done a thousand times before. Manson himself recently admitted that people in the properous West - and particularly suburban America - have very little to rebel about, so he should know better than to feed their transient thirst for teenage angst.

'Obsequey (The Death of Art)', meanwhile, is a Futurist citation which has more in common with Industrial sampling than with Metal. One thinks of Gabrielle D'Annunzio standing on a balcony in Fiume, reading from his anarchic-artistic manifesto. I'll return to the Industrial theme shortly, but suffice it to say that it's far preferable to most of the tracks on this rather average release. Next we have the two bonus tracks. The first, 'Tainted Love', is a cover of the famous Soft Cell song and is extremely good. But whereas Almond's effeminate vocals gave his version a unique style of its own, MM's equivalent has a far harder edge but without severing all ties with the original. The second bonus track, 'Baboon Rape Party', is more akin to a remix than anything else. A discordant piano adds a carnival flavour to a mish-mash of Manson voice samples and erratic beats, and with good effect.

And what of 'Doppelherz', the free DVD, I hear you cry? Now this is extremely impressive, to say the least. The reference to Industrial that I made earlier on was no accident. Indeed, nor was the reference to the 'cut-up' style developed by Willaim Burroughs and expanded-upon by a certain Genesis P-Orridge. MM have discovered the inexhaustible possibilities that can result from language manipulation. In this case, MM have used an operatic-studded thump amid which to bend and reshape a series of everyday comments within an Industrial soundtrack until they become metamorphosised into an intelligent array of anecdotes. Each recited matter-of-factly and containing such gems as: 'Why would I want to be equal with anyone?', 'To be equal you have to add and subtract and I have never liked math', 'You are recognisable as just another part in a vast machine', 'Everything has already been created, so we can only think of new ways of destroying them', 'Stop rehearsing alcohol and start performing narcotics', 'This is a caucasian occasion', 'Could someone please autograph the frontal lobe', 'I want downloadable suicide', 'My pupils are not students, they dilate but they never learn', 'There's not enough of me to make a bouquet, stop watering a dead flower', 'Each time we roll up the dollar bill we suffocate the president', 'The commercials should be faster because we are all just slo-guns just waiting to have our triggers pulled', 'My pain is not afraid to repeat itself', 'The aspiration to save the world is a morbid phenomenon of today's youth', 'Each time someone believes what I say I become a lie', 'I'm just like a holiday because I make everyone in the family cry', 'Don't bother trying to save the brain forest', 'Would you suck America's tits?', 'You are nothing but a screen upon which I will project my images of sorrow, pain and suffering and sex upon', 'The young are too senile', and 'The only thing left is cosmetic changes'. All this is said in a way not dissimilar to Genesis P-Orridge's spoken-word projects with Merzbow ('A Perfect Pain') and Thee Majesty ('Time's Up'). Meanwhile, the ensuing visuals include a macabre celluloid patchwork featuring a pair of naked goths shackled back-to-back in laced corsets with empty, asexual expressions; chattering teeth in blue-neon; ghouls carousing aimlessly along the blackened highways and byways of rural America; empty armchairs in darkened rooms; yellow masks strapped to whitened faces; tattoos and SS caps in craven bedroom romps; female flirtatiousness in black stilettos; and, of course, Manson's growing obsession with mirrors and the inverse imagery of face-painting. 'The Golden Age of Grotesque' may not be MM's best recording to date, but I would urge you to buy it simply for the DVD alone. Who knows, perhaps this is the transitional stage between MM's traditional Glam-Metal and their arrival at the wrought-iron gates of Industrial?

June 2003