Why are/were metalheads particularly appreciative of Marilyn Manson? In terms of his persona and character, yes but more centrally - musically? Metal bands of the more popular variety have also given Manson a pass. What are the thoughts of someone accustomed to metal on those Marilyn Manson albums? What musical itch did he scratch when all the Korns and Slipknots and Limp Bizkits of his era were being spat upon by metalheads?

Or did it all ultimately hang upon his persona, the shock shtick?

And what are those thoughts looking like now that he's been revealed to be an abuser amongst other heinous crimes.

They aren't?

Has any metalheads generally had a good look on Manson, though? I always thought of him having some decent to good music, but having one of the craziest personalities ever, both on stage and in real life. This look on his personality worsen for me recently with the allegations of him being abusive to several women, and I haven't even been listening to his stuff lately.

Plus, would you really wanna be associated with a guy who's played along with Rob Zombie (I don't like a lot of his stuff besides Hellbilly Deluxe)?

Has or had Manson gotten more props from the metal community than Slipknot? Of the four groups mentioned, I'd think Slipknot made more headway with "metalheads" than then rest. I can't think of anyone that I know that was deep into metal and rated Manson very highly.

What is a metalhead? You all speak of metalheads as if they share a common mind and are all the same. Seriously, there's probably a lot of overlapping between "metalheads" and Manson fans to a point where I would argue most of his fans listen to metal in one way or another. He did play the biggest metal fest after all (Hellfest) and I'm sure a lot of the "metalheads" there went to see him.

I personally am very much a fan of the first five Manson records, and then he just fell off a cliff starting with Eat Me, Drink Me and never recovered, although there are some scattered great songs throughout the second half of his discography ("Lay Down Your Goddamn Arms" off Born Villain immediately comes to mind as his best song post-Golden Age of Grotesque).

In terms of the general opinion of Manson in the metalsphere, this obviously is just my own experience, but I'll always remember going to Mayhem Fest 2009, co-headlined by both Manson and Slayer, and what seemed like no less than 2/3 of the ~30,000+ people in attendance left after Slayer. Manson played to no more than 10,000 people, and more people left throughout his set too. At least getting out of the parking lot was relatively easy.

Metalhead = metal fan in this case or just someone typically accustomed to listening to metal styles and their thoughts on MM.

I'd opened this thread in the Metal Discussion specifically to get takes from metal listeners. Pity it's in the Tavern but oh well...

Back in the early to mid 90's a lot of people where into him, especially those into "darker" stuff. People who liked a lot of blackmetal and the goth bands from that era usually liked him/them around Antichrist Superstar, I know he "lost" most of his so-called "metal fans" after that. But everyone I know who grew up listening to Black Metal in the 90's also went to his shows back then. Later on it got popular to hate him.

You also have to remember that Cradle of Filth, Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon, still were "cool" back then.

If your age on your profile is correct, we're roughly the same age, but my memory is totally different in this regard. I remember Manson getting shat on just as bad as the rest of that crowd. When nu metal was metal's Moral Panic Du Jour I don't recall anybody getting out unscathed. In the years since nu metal's dominance, when enough kids who grew up with it and moved on to real metal now being in their 30s and with enough breathing room for oldheads to be absolutely sure that it isn't going to make death metal disappear anymore, plenty of bands seem to have been reassessed and declared "not that bad" (System of a Down is the big one but people are less pissy about Slipknot, Static-X, and such as well, though I don't foresee Limp Bizkit ever getting a favorable reevaluation, lol). I suppose Manson got that treatment as well but it seems like nowhere near the level of retroactive appreciation that some of the aforementioned got. Just a few guys here and there who are like "oh cool, a new MM album, I kinda forgot about him" every few years.

On a personal note, even when I was an angsty pre-teen who loved the fuck out of the first two Staind albums and listened to Follow the Leader every single day, I never really cared for Manson. I think the only song I ever bothered downloading in the p2p era was The Beautiful People. Everything else I had heard from him didn't do much for me. So it's kind of strange for me to hear that he had built up a good bit of respect (before the recent abuse allegations finally wrecked him) when I didn't even like him back when I was 1000% into his style.

If I had to guess though, I'd say it comes down to two things: The image/persona and the music not actually being nu metal. Tons of bands from that style aimed for shock value but the Slipknots and Mudvaynes of the world felt more like Halloween costumes. There was no shortage of dorks who wore silly costumes and would tilt their heads at fisheye lenses with shit like "THIS IS SCISSOR SICKSTER ON THE BLOOD MARIMBAS", but out of all of those, Manson is the only one I remember feeling truly subversive. He was an awful prick but man he was the only guy who truly felt like he was crossing lines. Mushroomhead had spooky masks but Manson was on daytime television with a leather thong, thigh high stilettos, six foot long wings and a pope hat rubbing his pork'n'beans on a dude's face. There's a reason he and Rammstein got blamed for Columbine while Rob Zombie got off scot free, ya know? People who got into metal for the shock value and rebellion of it all could totally get behind a guy who was being blamed for a mass murder and following it up with an album cover like Holy Wood. The other point is that they seemed to (at least by my memory, correct me if I'm wrong) fall more in line with the industrial rock/metal side of things with Rob Zombie, Rammstein, and Static-X, than the explicit nu metal of Korn and their million imitators. The three artists from the previous sentence are all ones that I recall being hated by the troobies but reevaluated later as at the very least not a big deal and nowhere near as bad as those phony losers who rapped and wore sports jerseys, so it certainly tracks that Manson would've gotten the same treatment over the last decade or so.

This is all just speculation from the outside looking in, since I was never a fan of his, but that's my theory on it anyway.

From my Swedish perspective I think you are right in that Limp Bizkit and Korn generally didn’t attract the metal crowd but Manson did. However, I’d say Slipknot did as well. Although their rep might have come a while into their career.

I think Manson attracted a more metal crowd because of several parameters. His anti-religious, and sometimes satanic, stances appealed. The music was darker than that of a big chunk of the nu-metal bands. I also think the metal scene already had its fair share of cross-over crowd with the gothic- as well as the industrial community.

I also think there was an appeal in Manson for people who also liked Cradle of Filth in the late 90’s. I seem to remember quite a lot of people who weren’t really into black metal, but liked Cradle of Filth, also liked Manson. Especially I think those two bands shared a female fanbase which other metal bands usually didn’t have.

My point was it's weird to differentiate between "metalheads" and "Manson fans". Most Manson fans are probably metalheads, unless your definition for" metalhead" is very elitist and you only consider metalheads people that listen to heavy/trad/classic metal bands. Some people even consider some of his output to be "industrial metal" so under some definitions, listening to Manson makes you a metalhead...


I agree with most of what you said but I think the Nine Inch Nails connection is also important in this case. Manson was viewed as Trent's no. 1 student and Nine Inch Nails (from Pretty Hate Machine to The Fragile) were revered by a lot of people. Hell, they haven't released a single good album since The Fragile and they are still revered nowadays. Once Trent cut all ties with Manson his musical career heavily declined. Maybe both things aren't related at all but I always had a feeling whatever Trent said or did was important to a lot of people and he heavily influenced Manson's career and how Manson was perceived by the public.

I think he managed to have just the right amount of everything to suck in a quite wide variety of fans. I was never particularly into him myself, but I was very much aware of him when he was becoming huge, and had friends who were obsessed with him. He had some heavier riffs at times and a bit of guitar pyrotechnics from John 5 to draw in the rock/metal crowd. The extreme metal (particularly the mainstream end of black metal) people could appreciate the shock value and overtures to anti-Christianity, Satanism and such. The visual aesthetics drew in a lot of goths, particularly girls. Probably also some older people who liked the bombastic entertainment value of artists like KISS or Alice Cooper. Young listeners were an easy catch with him being such an obvious target to piss their parents off. He additionally had some of the sonic trappings of industrial rock to draw in some of the rivetheads. For as iconoclastic as his theatrics were, he was always intelligent and thoughtful in interviews, which made him appear to have a lot more depth than many of his peers, and also set him up as a bit of a martyr after the media was relentless in trying to demonize him, especially after Columbine. He also had a boost being associated with the soundtracks to films like The Matrix.

Manson attracted the metal community in a similar way Rob Zombie and NIN did: they delivered "heavy" rock with a really dark, twisted and metal-like aesthetics. Also, all those 3 artists have actually delivered great material.

Yeah I'm 32. I was totally oblivious to Manson's rise and blowup until The Golden Age of Grotesque and when I caught up with what he'd been doing it slid comfortably into the Static X/Korn variety of metal. sAINT doesn't sound that different stylistically from Korn and This Is The New Shit also sounded similar to Limp Bizkit as far as I was concerned. I think it was his intent that greatly differed from all those guys. You make a good point about him being truly subversive. I agree that he was.



Really amazing how there honestly hasn't been a memorable Nine Inch Nails full length album since The Fragile. When they were mud-slinging each other in the press Trent called Manson careerist and his wanting to reinvent himself like Bowie on each album does play into that but his legacy is probably not going to be as he envisioned. I remember reading that Trent destroyed the masters to Antichrist Superstar out of jealousy or spite and there were claims that he wrote/played all the music on that album anyway. Manson said he remembered Trent being jealous of all the bands he presumed were getting more attention than NIN at the time like Smashing Pumpkins and being stressed out that Soundgarden's Superunknown unseated The Downward Spiral at the top of the charts lol. I enjoy some of Year Zero and Hesitation Marks but NIN went out with a whimper.

I think you've nailed it down perfect Litho! That bombast in Manson's music and lyrics did cut across and register with metalheads more suited to extreme styles. I can't really remember any signature riffs right now but stuff like Mobscene and Reflecting God does have a weighty bombastic approach in the traditional sense. It's increasingly bizarre that the stuff he portrayed and said reflected the kind of person he was but his fans were taken in by the shock factor of it all. Hearing him sing "everybody's someone else's nigger" never felt odd to me until recently with the accusations of racism that have surfaced as well. The Hitler hairstyle isn't so tongue in cheek after all.

Probably one of the best explanations of the current perception of nu metal, and yeah Manson was seen as pretty unfavorable by my peers back in the day. I definitely went through my phase of not liking nu metal when I got more into "real metal", and it's only been recently (recent as in the last 5 or so years) that I've gotten back into a lot of those nu metal bands I listened to in my very formative years. What's funny is that when everyone was freaked out about the rise of "false metal" and the death of "real metal", little did they realize that the false metal was keeping real metal alive and relevant. Don't know if I would've ever gotten into real metal had I never had Korn or Disturbed or Slipknot as a 10 year old.

Listening to it now just for old times sake, but "Antichrist Superstar" was something special in 96. I never cared much for anything afterwards, but that album, especially the back half, has a really poisonous atmosphere to it. I love it as a piece of studio production, and on that level it's almost a "not quite as good" version of "the downward spiral", which I loved at the time. And beyond that I loved the way it was an artefact of that late 80s/early 90s "Apocalypse culture" uber-edgelord scene (Feral House publishing/Boyd Rice/Church of Satan/ANSWER ME! Zine etc) that somehow slithered out into the light of day and somehow became popular

I don't have much to add to what LittoJazzoSphere wrote as he summed it up well, but being 40 and having first gotten into metal in 94' I was pretty into Portrait of an American Family right after it came out, and thought Antichrist Superstar was ok but stopped listening to them after that, but i saw them live twice, the first time around 95 or 96 and they put on a good show, and then again at Ozzfest 98 and they also put on a good show then.

I haven't listened to them in years, but i know if i put on "Portrait" I'd still probably like it as a blast from the past, but I no longer find bands of that style interesting going forwards, and I wouldn't want to support him financially with what's come out about him recently, but he is an interesting character and relatively eloquent when he wants to be.

Funny thing is that by the time anything of that era was even probably given the name "nu-metal" i was off of it and onto real metal.

The only other "nu-metal" I ever really got into at that time was Korn's first album, unless you count RATM who I kind of consider being their own style.

That brings back memories. I was at one of the dates of that festival and was one of the people that left after Slayer. Why Manson was slotted after Slayer is beyond me. It did seem like a decent number of people stuck around for Manson at the date I went to, but this was a long time ago and I may be misremembering.

In any case I agree with the general sentiment here, it seems like most metal fans I've ever associated with never had a high opinion of Manson. Where I lived Manson always seemed to be more popular with the Slipknot/Papa Roach/mid-00s goth Hot Topic crowd than anyone else.

In my neck of the woods there is a big divide between metalheads who listen to Dimmu Borgir/Cradle of Filth/Slipknot and those who listen to Razor/Stress/Gospel of the Horns , with Marilyn Manson very much fitting into the listening habits of the former group .

In fact many metalheads who belong to the latter group would call the former group " posers/not actual metalheads " and while I no longer play that ( admittedly ) juvenile game , IMHO it's quite obvious that there's a big difference between metalheads who are fans of ( for lack of a better term ) " old school " metal music and those who are fans of the newer varieties that often include Marilyn Manson .

Naturally I'm most familiar with Hungary , but ( FWIW ) I highly doubt that the type of people who listen to Attacker and Griffin or ( on the other end of the old school metal spectrum ) Impiety and Diocletian tend to be Manson fans and vice versa , regardless of country of origin/residence .

In short it's never seemed to me that metalheads as such have ever had a widely group held affinity for Marilyn Manson .

I think its interesting as people get into metal i feel like they go through phases..... the introductory phase.... the classic underground phase.... then they start really divulging into the subgenres and then maybe go alittle to far off the spectrum into the noise category. In my personal opinion death metal and its relative offshoots like deathcore is what I primarily listen to but I always find myself going back to some of the nu metal I used to enjoy and still find much pleasure in it. Slipknot as a whole imo is still a great band, early Static X, early Mudvayne, Fear Factory, Early Korn, and Coal Chamber, and even early Limp Bizkit all are something I still enjoy from time to time, where as I divulged down the goregrind path for a bit, and honestly most of that stuff is pure garbage, particularly all those one man bands, few exceptions aside.

With all that said though Manson was someone who I always overlooked in the nu metal phase, I enjoyed a few songs hear and there and I actually enjoy his lower singing register but overall he just never stuck with me the same way Slipknot did. I think all the "elite" metal stuff where you hate on artists who are popular or are linked to metal but really arent is just childish nonsense. Does it matter if Manson was metal? Does is matter if metalheads liked him or didnt like him? I mean i know plenty of fans of death metal who dont like particular death metal bands.... it means nothing to me. People like what they like. I can enjoy something like "Consumed By Repugnance" by Defeated Sanity and "The Beautiful People" by Manson just the same, it doesnt mean one is better, it doesnt even matter that one is more metal, to me a good song is a good song.

I had a rocker friend in my late teens who was a few years older than me. When Manson was allowed to play in Ireland for the first time, he had a double headliner with Iron Maiden. My little brother and I were so excited cos we got tickets and were there to see Iron Maiden. However my friend, he was there to see Manson, and openly poo-poohed Iron Maiden (!) I mean I know there are metalheads in existence who don't rate or aren't into Maiden, but other than him I've never physically met such a person who honestly didn't think their music was any good.

Anyway, at the gig, the crowd was very clearly divided: Manson played first and those there to see him were at the front - but then they all cleared out and almost to a person, none of them stayed to see Iron Maiden, which I thought was weird - firstly cos OMG Iron Maiden, but you know, you paid for a rock concert ticket might as well get your monies worth!

So, I guess I'm ambling here, but other than The Beautiful People, and my goth style phase, I wasn't into Manson and basically wasn't really exposed to him. I really don't know what my friend got from Manson that he didn't get from other groups, but he was a big fan, and he was into other bands mentioned like Slipknot etc, but I never was, we had pretty different musical taste I guess, though we both shared like of Deftones. There does, based on that one teenage experience of that gig, seem to be a standout thing that people got from Manson's music. It's made me scratch my head that question cos I can't really answer it, I just recall my experience of others enjoyment of it.

I never liked him.

It was always boring rock songs to me.

I listened to it again last year just out of nostalgia.

I still like Marilyn Manson, but things have changed since 2006, which was the last time I heard it.

Portrait was largely forgettable in my opinion.

The golden stuff was Antichrist, Mechanical Animals and about half of Holy Wood.

Didn't pay attention to Golden Age or anything after that outside of occasionally checking out the latest single to reaffirm my opinion that MM only did 2 albums worth listening to front to back.

ACSS and MA are very important albums to me though. Two of my all time favs and responsible for getting me into darker, nastier music.