Marilyn Manson

Marilyn Manson is the name of a gothic/industrial/metal band and the stage name of the band's lead singer. Born Brian Warner in 1979, the future Marilyn Manson was raised in Canton, Ohio. At the age of 18 he moved to Florida to attend college as a journalism major. His upbringing had given him a somewhat jaundiced view of American life and when he met a guitarist with a desire to do something unprecedented, he was ready to form a band that would give voice to his own alienation. He created his stage name from two tragic figures in American culture and the guitarist followed suit, becoming known as Daisy Berkowitz (from the Satanist serial killer, the Son of Sam). Both names combined male and female reference.

The new band hit the stage as Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids. Manson as lead singer and Berkowitz as lead guitarist were joined by Olivia Newton-Bundy on bass, Zsa Zsa Speck on keyboards, and a little-remembered drummer. A short time later, Bundy and Speck were replaced by bassist Gidget Gein and keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy. (Like Manson and Berkowitz, Bundy, Speck, Gein, and Gacy were all serial killers.) The next summer the band landed a gig opening a show for Nine Inch Nails and Manson became friends with its leader, Trent Reznor.The band developed a stage performance that enforced the irreverence of its music . The band members dressed in outlandish costumes and items associated with the offensive persons whose names they had adopted appeared as part of the stage setting. A logo with Marilyn Manson in horror movie dripping letters surrounded by Marilyn Monroe's seductive gaze and Charlie Manson's wide-eyed stare graced T-shirts and other paraphernalia . The band also issued a series of self-produced and self-marketed cassettes, beginning in 1989 with Meat Beat Cleaver Beat and followed the next year by Big Black Bus, named for the vehicle used by the Charles Manson Family.

Around 1992, the band's name was shortened to simply Marilyn Manson. In 1993, the band received a Slammie Award as Band of the Year. In the meantime, Trent Reznor had started a new record label, Nothing (Poppy Z. Brite's gothic punk novel Lost Souls with her feature character Nothing had appeared in 1992). Manson agreed to a tour with Nine Inch Nails and a recording contract to produce their first album, Portrait of an American Family. It was released in June 1994. In July at the Slammie Awards the Mansons won their second Grand Slammie for Band of the Year and the lead singer was named Best Vocalist. The tour with Nine Inch Nails that began in August established them as a band of national importance. One measure of their new fan base was the rapid spread of sites concerning the band on the Internet .

Manson's clash with his more conservative elders (who controlled many of the sites at which rock bands played), came to the forefront during the NiN tour. For the first time, he was asked to censor parts of his show and in one case not allowed to play. Also, during this tour, he had a personal meeting with Anton LaVey, head of the Church of Satan, during which LaVey made Manson a priest in the church. He adopted the title reverend which also became a useful means of distinguishing him from the band as a whole.

In 1995 the band again won two Slammies, this time for Best National Release (for Portrait of an American Family) and Best Single (for "Lunchbox"). They celebrated their win by releasing a new album, Smells Like Children (taking the title from a line from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang as spoken by the Child-Catcher). The band's growing popularity was signaled by the coverage given the band in mainstream rock magazines, and Portrait of an American Family finally going gold.

At the beginning of 1996, fans (mostly teenagers and young adults who took his music very personally and shared them with everyone on the Internet) generated massive rumors around the new album, Antichrist Superstar. Speculating from the band member's interviews, they predicted the band's break up or even (in a post-Waco world) mass suicide. The trauma was of a significantly lesser nature-Berkowitz left the band. Antichrist Superstar was released in October 1996 and debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard chart. The album was marked by a loss of the playful humor of their previous work and the emphasis on a dark gothic presence. The band's popularity with the younger generation created a reaction to it from their parents reminiscent to early rock 'n roll, but merely continued the 1980s reaction to Satanic metal rock and teen fascination with both Satanic and Nazi symbols.

The band carried their Satanic imagery to the hilt. The stage for their extended "Dead to the World" Tour featured a backdrop suggestive of a ruined church with a stained-glass window (depicting a female angel in combat with Satan), framed by impaled angels, a pipe organ, and a towering podium. Fans continued projecting onto the band and in the fall of 1996 predicted Manson's onstage suicide at the band's Halloween concert. Manson had no time for suicide-he was too busy dealing with the moral critics of the band and the disruption of his performances caused by the sudden need to change performance sites.

To Manson's fans, no words are necessary, however, to his learned critics, Manson has defended the band by claiming that it is but a reflection of a totally screwed-up world. In the wake of Antichrist Superstar, the dark and sinister atmosphere of its music and performance has continued and been enhanced. Their fan base continues to grow through the last days of the twentieth century. Rather than corrupting the audiences to which they play, Manson charges that the audiences are what they are before they come; they are the result of the life and action of the people pointing their fingers at the band. The entrance of various Evangelical Christian groups into active opposition to the band in 1996 has helped to solidify the band's position among teenagers who are drawn to the popular target of the older generation. Marilyn Manson the band is well on its way to becoming one of the identifying symbols of the youthful generation of the 1990s.

Batirbek, Ty. "Marilyn Manson." Propaganda 23 (Fall 1996): 4-5.
Manson, Marilyn. Long Hard Road Out of Hell. New York: Regan/HarperCollins, 1997. 288 pp.