M Manson, thoughts on a scandal?

[Dirk Blaggard]

I am generally curious what people think of this M Manson stuff, the documentary that's on HBO etc
I have never been a fan. My friend said-
"He's such an American rock act. In the way that M is a British one. Whereas M keys into a certain British mindset and emotional base. So, too does Manson but in regard to America. He's basic and appeals to such a childish, damaged and empty " I hate myself" teenage mindset.
To me he can't sing, he is a bit thick, but people in the fly-over states probably consider him intelligent and his art is just devoid of depth- he's like a "let's be scary" version of those female whisper music acts- whereas they a take a punk song and sing it, in a folk song whisper. Manson will take a light pop song and make it shouty
I have watched a few of his interviews, as I am an Alice Cooper fan, but I just do not see any intelligence. That said I do not think he is guilty "
I tend to agree

I'm just curious what other people think

 

[Lucifer Sam]

I am generally curious what people think of this M Manson stuff, the documentary that's on HBO etc
I have never been a fan. My friend said-
"He's such an American rock act. In the way that M is a British one. Whereas M keys into a certain British mindset and emotional base. So, too does Manson but in regard to America. He's basic and appeals to such a childish, damaged and empty " I hate myself" teenage mindset.
To me he can't sing, he is a bit thick, but people in the fly-over states probably consider him intelligent and his art is just devoid of depth- he's like a "let's be scary" version of those female whisper music acts- whereas they a take a punk song and sing it, in a folk song whisper. Manson will take a light pop song and make it shouty
I have watched a few of his interviews, as I am an Alice Cooper fan, but I just do not see any intelligence. That said I do not think he is guilty "
I tend to agree

I'm just curious what other people think

I don't like Marilyn Manson at all, but I'd like to see the documentary out of prurient interest. If Evan Rachel Wood is to believed, he was an even bigger scumbag than was previously thought. Unfortunately, I don't have HBO. I don't think you can compare Morrissey's mining of a "British mindset" with Marilyn Manson's appropriation of an American one. They are doing very different things on completely different levels. As you say, with Marilyn Manson there was never any creativity or intelligence there, and he was more or less only ever making music for disaffected ersatz Satanist kids in fly-over states. How did he date Evan Rachel Wood and Rose McGowan? The world is a strange place.

A better American answer to Morrissey's borrowings and appropriations of British culture might be 80s Michael Stipe, and his penchant for Southern gothic. Southern colloquialisms like "Katy bar the door," "losing my religion," and "cant get there from here," the punctuation borrowed from Faulkner, the kudzu and gargoyles and Howard Finster art on the album covers, the rural village eccentrics in some of the songs, the railroads and rushes imagery, &c. It's interesting, too, because I don't think Stipe is a Southerner by birth, and clearly he was into the Beat poets and Lou Reed and Patti Smith, but he ended up living in Athens, Georgia and somehow his sensibilities to were drawn to a sort of fey Carson McCullers aesthetic. You (or your friend) have to compare Morrissey to someone who's working on a high level.

 

[Eldritch]

I have followed Manson's career with interest and even bought some of his records at the time when we still bought records. Even I'm not a metal fan, I do think there is intelligence and talent there. Especially Mechanical Animals (1998) is a very strong album and We Are Chaos (2019) showed that he was in fine form before his troubles caught up with him. Judging Manson by his tiresome eighties covers is like forming an opinion about Morrissey by a couple of his frothier hits.

However, even though I have liked Manson's music, I have no doubt about him being guilty. So I am very interested in how someone who's not even a fan can claim he's innocent. With so many accusers, is there a conspiracy or a secret pact between all these different woman? I find that idea absurd and misogynistic.

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

People used to consider Michael Stipe the American answer to M. Due to REM being a college band like Smiths
But I don't think Michael ever made it as an icon. He was very good, I liked him, but I do not think he is an icon the way M is.I do not think he is a symbol of his country the way M is.
I think if anyone is an American version of M, its Bruce Springsteen. Bruce is very American just as M is very English.
Both are very much symbols of their country. Just as Bruce is open-hearted and on the nose and big, like America.So M is twisted, ironic and warped like the Brits. Both are very much working-class artists and so on.

I want to add, I do not think as a human or artist Manson is anything like M, as such. I just mean there are certain parrels, both attempted music writing both deal in warped romance (in their own different ways) both are icons world wide etc etc
I think Manson is guilty of SOME of the things. However, the two who made the documentary are suspect- one is a known grifter from Australia, who has lied about giving money to charity, also arranged a "swat" at Mansons and forged an FBI document
Then we have the actress. who acts like Manson stole her innocence, when she was 18 , first 18 isn't a child, second she was dating a 40 year old man before him - the actor Ed Norton.
She makes out she was held hostage, yet made 7 films This Metoo movement has really shown there are some nasty women about.
Funny how its only men called "toxic" .
HBO has created some brilliant TV and put America on the map. American tv has left the UK's tv in the dust but it has form for stitch-up, one-sided victim docs= Woody Allen, Michael Jackson and now this

 

[Well we’ll well]

Marilyn Manson can definitely sing and he put on better shows than Morrissey but neither of them are nice people and both are fascinated by nazis. Evan Rachel Wood probably just changed her mind later like what Moz said about how actresses do when things don’t go their way.

 

[Lucifer Sam]

People used to consider Michael Stipe the American answer to M. Due to REM being a college band like Smiths
But I don't think Michael ever made it as an icon. He was very good, I liked him, but I do not think he is an icon the way M is.I do not think he is a symbol of his country the way M is.
I think if anyone is an American version of M, its Bruce Springsteen. Bruce is very American just as M is very English.
Both are very much symbols of their country. Just as Bruce is open-hearted and on the nose and big, like America.So M is twisted, ironic and warped like the Brits. Both are very much working-class artists and so on.

I agree that Michael Stipe never became an icon. But America is a diverse and large place, and I don't think Springsteen is any more emblematic of "America" than Elvis or Dylan, who were certainly iconic, probably more so. And Morrissey and Springsteen seem to diverge on the working class aspect, because Springsteen puts on a goofy, overly righteous, celebratory caricature of the working class, whereas Morrissey tends to be critical of everything and everyone. He's a genuine malcontent, and would never have been satisfied with being a hospital orderly or a canal bank cleaner. Dylan had that malcontent quality, too. He wrote a lot of kiss-off hymns. I don't think you can really point to any one artist and say they're symbolic of America any more than you can do it for England.

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

Manson, with acts like Slipknot and other crap, may be symbolic of that particular time in America, but not an icon or even an American icon. And definitely won’t be remembered in the same way l believe M will be remembered and his place in musical history.
Is Manson unintelligent? at least smart enough to pick up things from NIN, Alice Cooper, and Bowie, just a modern take on shock rock and make a career out of it. As far as the behavior and actions that he’s being accused of? I think most wouldn’t expect any less from him, life imitates art ?

 

[Lucifer Sam]

Manson, with acts like Slipknot and other crap, may be symbolic of that particular time in America

I had completely forgotten about Slipknot. It's amazing to contemplate how awful the late 90s were. Boy bands, nü metal, post-grunge, Disney pop tarts, jam bands—it was appalling and relentless. Andy Partridge loved the 60s, but he said that when he looked at the old music charts from the 60s he realized he had been cherry-picking. So he opined that every human population always has the same percentage of artists, and every era is the same, there's about 12 percent of great and really good music, and the rest is the range of mediocre and bad. I think the late 90s showed him wrong. The bad was so bad.

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

I think you missed the point I was making,
I am not saying Bruce sums up the whole of America, and Morrissey certainly doesn't for England. I am talking about they represent certain emotions, characteristics that both countries are known for, among a certain class.

The fact I am having to explain either means I'm doing an awful job of communicating or you don't get it, I think slightly both

When someone says, for instance, The North of England speaks to the working class, and the South the middle class. They are not saying there are NO middle class in the North and NO working class in the south- they are generalising certain ways, emotional impulses and ideology
That is what I am talking about with Bruce and M they are very different people because Britain and the USA are very different places
But both speak about the working class of their own country in their own way . That's the point I am making

". And Morrissey and Springsteen seem to diverge on the working class aspect, because Springsteen puts on a goofy, overly righteous, celebratory caricature of the working class, whereas Morrissey tends to be critical of everything and everyone."

Exactly as those traits are common among that class in the USA , that is how it rolls- look at the USA's mainstream culture and politics, its backwards, which is why you have the Roe V Wade situation and politicians talking about god, often
In the UK we are cynics, who don't trust much and kick against things.
Nobody is saying they are the same artist. Jeeze
Again, I am not saying they speak for the WHOLE county, that would be insane.
There is reason people have been saying of M for years "He's Very English a very English artist" , that is the point I am making he is and in that kind of way so is Bruce in regards to being very American (I think also they both have Irish stock)
I feel, and I don't mean this in a nasty way, but there was a hint of autism in the way you took what I said so literally. People often say of artists "They are very American artists " do you think they mean, they speak for the whole of America?

Anyway, the post was a side comment, in a sense it's not important
Im not keen on M Manson, not a fan, I just thought I could see a stitch-up job and I wondered what others thought

 

[Dirk Blaggard]

I have followed Manson's career with interest and even bought some of his records at the time when we still bought records. Even I'm not a metal fan, I do think there is intelligence and talent there. Especially Mechanical Animals (1998) is a very strong album and We Are Chaos (2019) showed that he was in fine form before his troubles caught up with him. Judging Manson by his tiresome eighties covers is like forming an opinion about Morrissey by a couple of his frothier hits.

However, even though I have liked Manson's music, I have no doubt about him being guilty. So I am very interested in how someone who's not even a fan can claim he's innocent. With so many accusers, is there a conspiracy or a secret pact between all these different woman? I find that idea absurd and misogynistic.

PS as for Bob Dylan, I think he had power for a moment and is a great writer but I think if he wasn't Jewish he wouldn't have been praised quite so much, that noble peace prize (or whatever he got) wouldn't have happened.
And I'm pro-Israel, been there in early 2000's and loved the place. Im pro jew before people start being stupid.
Its just an observation that Jews, certainly "stick together" and push their own forward in a way.
They aren't the only ones, most religious types do. The Jews just cornered the market in Entertainment

 

[Lucifer Sam]

I think you missed the point I was making,
I am not saying Bruce sums up the whole of America, and Morrissey certainly doesn't for England. I am talking about they represent certain emotions, characteristics that both countries are known for, among a certain class.

The fact I am having to explain either means I'm doing an awful job of communicating or you don't get it, I think slightly both

When someone says, for instance, The North of England speaks to the working class, and the South the middle class. They are not saying there are NO middle class in the North and NO working class in the south- they are generalising certain ways, emotional impulses and ideology
That is what I am talking about with Bruce and M they are very different people because Britain and the USA are very different places
But both speak about the working class of their own country in their own way . That's the point I am making

". And Morrissey and Springsteen seem to diverge on the working class aspect, because Springsteen puts on a goofy, overly righteous, celebratory caricature of the working class, whereas Morrissey tends to be critical of everything and everyone."

Exactly as those traits are common among that class in the USA , that is how it rolls- look at the USA's mainstream culture and politics, its backwards, which is why you have the Roe V Wade situation and politicians talking about god, often
In the UK we are cynics, who don't trust much and kick against things.
Nobody is saying they are the same artist. Jeeze
Again, I am not saying they speak for the WHOLE county, that would be insane.
There is reason people have been saying of M for years "He's Very English a very English artist" , that is the point I am making he is and in that kind of way so is Bruce in regards to being very American (I think also they both have Irish stock)
I feel, and I don't mean this in a nasty way, but there was a hint of autism in the way you took what I said so literally. People often say of artists "They are very American artists " do you think they mean, they speak for the whole of America?

Anyway, the post was a side comment, in a sense it's not important
Im not keen on M Manson, not a fan, I just thought I could see a stitch-up job and I wondered what others thought

Probably what's causing our mutual incomprehensibility is that you're a Briton and I'm an American. I have no idea whether I'm autistic or not. But I do understand that you're not saying Morrissey speaks for or represents all of England, or all of England's working class. I'm just having difficulty seeing what kind of salient connection he has to the working class. Granted, he was raised in a working class household, but I think his impression of a good many of the working class people he was surrounded with was that he found them lumpen and oafish. He was bored and frustrated with his surroundings, the passed-down prejudices and the sexual straightjacket. I think that's why he is so often drawn to romanticizing criminality and male prostitution. The criminal opts out of working class drudgery & servitude and makes his living on his own terms, come what may. "Victim, or life's adventurer | which of the two are you?" Mind you, I'm not saying he's against the working class. He said he would be a socialist if he was made to choose a label, and he palled around with Billy Bragg, and hated Thatcher, and all that. But I don't see his art as particularly class-oriented, or representative of the working class the same way the films of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are. Admittedly, I'm looking at this from the outside.

I agree that he is a very English artist. But, I think you could say that of the Beatles, Syd Barrett, Bowie, Oasis, &c. as well. And anyway, we Americans have adopted Morrissey now, and he is ours, the certified California Son, so rich he doesn't give the working class a second thought at all anymore as he enjoys black bean tacos in Malibu, and shooting hoops with Liam Lynch and Fernando Valenzuela at the local skate park / basketball court, and having threesomes with vapid magenta-haired silicone groupies named Xaviera and Becki at the Sunset Marquis f*ck tit chipper curry c*nt feck arse innnnniiiitttttt mate

 

[Lucifer Sam]

Except maybe Moz Angeles. As long as Morrissey wears those sunglasses, he is safe from sinking into the flyover morass.