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This is a letter I e-mailed someone regarding
Marilyn Manson before I started building this site. I have placed Marilyn
Manson in my personal profile in the chat network I use, and for good purpose
- I get quite a few people only too eager to tell me what they think of
him and his band. Funnily enough, the only other band listed in my profile,
Nine Inch Nails (NIN), hardly gets a mention, yet I find Trent Reznor's
lyrics much more poignant and confronting...even disturbing. I find it
a significant indication of the power of hype that Marilyn gets so much
more attention. However, I do realise that while NIN challenge lyrically,
Manson is much more in your face about it, like with his getup, and even
occasional nudity on stage. All I know is, if every time some guy does
something in front of a couple of hundred people you go telling millions
about it, YOU create the hype, not him.
Anyway, this letter was a response to comments
regarding Manson's views and ways of projecting them. One of us got cut
off so I decided to finish the conversation with an e-mail. Here it is
(and if you think it is a heap of rubbish, by all means send me an e-mail
and let me know!) :
Just thought I'd finish our conversation about Marilyn Manson and the emerging technopsychology. I can understand you not liking the music and/or views, and respect that, though my interest goes beyond musical icons or their music. The views expressed are not really new to me, though the lyrics are great. For me, it is the thrill of watching a new phase of human evolution. This genre is not just some new tribe....and there is no tribe.
It's related to the angst of the modern age, yet embraces the cold reality of the future. It's almost like a sub-culture within sub-cultures: Techno-lovers hate it (too heavy, too soft, too weird and erratic to dance to); Headbangers hate it (too soft, too erratic, too much techno crap in it - oh no, it's got a dance beat in it!). Your average person couldn't even begin to categorize it.
Of course, personally I AM drawn to this music, coz I'm seeing the distinctions blurred across opposite sides of the musical spectrum. "Industrial" music - to me - is the precursor to a more evolved sound that really blends techno and heavy metal angst like never before. Musically speaking, what impressed me of this new genre I call "CyberPunk" (when you look at the 2 terms in that name, it makes more sense than it's normal translation as anti-hero), is the fact that in many places, the beat is not provided by real nor electric drums, but by natural and digital samples being repeated. Nine Inch Nails (or Trent Reznor, who is Nine Inch Nails) is a master of this - that's why he's being called upon by more and more film-makers to produce the soundtracks (Natural Born Killers, Lost Highway - he even did the music for the game Quake!).
Of course, the subject matter is usually dark, and if you think Manson is that, Trent is more so....though he delves into the soul and shadow and mostly screams about the rot that he finds within himself. He doesn't make references to Satan and all, but I think Manson only does that for effect....or maybe even to draw attention to himself.
However, Marilyn's pretty intelligent and I wondered whether he sees Satan as I do - a metaphor - and whether he could see that black/white, good/evil, etc, are just expressions of the masculine/feminine.
Well I recently downloaded a couple of pages worth of stuff including interviews, and I'm going to edit it into a doc - I'll send you a copy. Basically, from the little I read at the time, he DOES have a "Jungian" view of things (though he doesn't mention him).....just that he spends more time on the shadow aspect than most.
But remember - Socrates was seen as a trouble-maker (indeed, he was forced to drink poison for it). He was seen by many at the time to be very dangerous - he was trying to introduce the evil concept of "philosophical thought", rocking the boat by questioning everything that was regarded as fact. He also forced people to look within themselves.....
Freud was seen as a nutter for his concept of the unconscious, yet we can say that it is now a basic assumption in psychology. Then his prize pupil, Carl Jung, was seen as eccentric in his view that psychology, philosophy, and Eastern and Western religions could be reconciled by observing the duality of the universe, the masculine and the feminine.
So, in conclusion, I have to say that I understand your dislike for Manson and/or this whole genre of techno-bangers, and any fears they bring up in you. After all, you're a teacher who knows only too well how impressionable people can be. The thought of people getting into this kind of music without having any real understanding of what it is about, well, scares the hell out of me too! Yet, should we suppress this inner expression and philosophical exploration for the intellectual safety of the ignorant masses?
That is the question that I ask of thee...
