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Space Fraudity
by Guy Babineau 

Never-dull Marilyn Manson’s Omega persona is the Alien 
Resurrection of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, but darker.
Is Manson’s new style an homage to the master of
rock ‘n’ roll costume changes, a philosophical treatise,
or just  media manipulation? (Can you hear me, Major Tom?)

Turn on the TV to a music awards show and it seems like 
every mainstream rap, hip hop or r&b artist with a hit on 
the charts drags out a backup army of white-robed Gospel 
singers, just to reinforce the connection between Heaven 
and Billboard. Winners thank you-know-who profusely, 
and some even take advantage of having a biblically 
significant name—but we won’t point out Madonna—to 
become perhaps more world-famous than the original 
source.

It’s no wonder that from time-to-time someone shows up to
question whether or not there’s something else out there
hovering above us, like make-up, or platform shoes. In a world
of Hansons, Spice Girls, Osmonds and Partridge Familys, artists like 
David Bowie entertainingly remind us that all that glitters is 
not gold, sometimes it’s sequins with attitude, Marilyn 
Manson bringing up the rear to reiterate the point with 
postmodern polish. In both cases, the sequins are sown onto 
the fabric of theatrical and philosophical poignancy.

When Manson first gained recognition, bending gender with
a Cabinet of Dr. Caligari meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre
twist, his CDs and EPs such as Smells Like Children and Antichrist
Superstar upset some religious groups. The lyrics of 
Manson’s entire discography discuss atheism in no 
uncertain terms, and his cocky, menacing pose and 
appearance suggest that he fully, hedonistically lives the 
nihilistic viewpoints he preaches. Goth, Industrial Heavy 
Metal, Satanism, call it what you will, Manson has pushed 
some hot buttons, but they are the same buttons rock has 
been pushing since Day One.

In the late 60s, religious groups protested rock ‘n’ roll as the spawn
of Satan, particularly The Rolling Stones, who in 1968 released a hit
song called Sympathy with the Devil. In 1972, one of rock’s biggest
acts was man with a woman’s name, who wore 
lots of black eyeliner, encouraged teenage rebellion and, 
onstage, feigned masturbation and violence (the more 
things change, ...). Alice Cooper was his name. Then, in 
March 1973, in the culmination of his first North American 
tour to promote The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and 
The Spiders From Mars, David Bowie descended from the 
gods above the stage at Radio City Music Hall riding an 
enormous silver sphere. He wore bespangled pantaloons, a 
silver medallion on his forehead, bright red electrified hair, 
and sang about outer space, the end of the world, fame and 
bisexuality.

No one at the time quite knew what to make of Bowie’s Brecht-fest
at Tiffany’s, but his influence would mark a momentous transition in
pop and rock. The album Ziggy Stardust never made it onto the charts
in the States, despite raves in Rolling Stone, New Musical Express
and every other industry rag, yet it is considered to be one of the
most important rock albums of the era. And ever since, from Kiss to
Duran Duran to M. Manson, the boys just can’t put down the 
lipliner and blush.

With his recent, stylistically rather brilliant release Mechanical Animals
—name c/o Frederick Nietszche—Marilyn Manson dusts off Bowie’s
androgynous space capsule and propels us into a cosmos where
the stars shine a little less brightly. There’ s more than makeup to his
thoughtful if somewhat depressing ‘life sucks’ updating of the Ziggy
Stardust legacy. Sure, it’s reverential, but there’s a tongue in the
cheek as well as a platform on the boot.

The overall sound, though more sophisticated due to advanced technology,
is very reminiscent of early Bowie. The tunes aren’t as catchy, the
lyrics are a matter of a listener’s personal taste and age, but it’s
compelling. Parts of some tracks echo specific Bowie songs; 1973’s
Jean Genie in Rock is Dead; the guitar lick from 1975’s Fame in I
Don’t Like the Drugs (The Drugs Like Me); the crowd intro to 1974’s
Diamond Dogs in Mechanical Animals; the vocals throughout. It’s 
unlikely that the antithetical tension Manson insinuates here 
is incidental.

Manson has said in interviews that he doesn’t want fans to mimic him
and that he doesn’t like being labeled; that music journalists create labels,
not musicians. Thing is, before rock stardom, Manson was a music journalist.
He’s working from the outside in, pulling random images as he goes. He
knows how to manipulate impressions and ideas, he’s as blatantly 
self-conscious as Bowie, and they’re both better off for it. It’s called
theater. That’s why they’re not boring.

So, as companions in the space race, where do they meet, and where
do they part ways? The answers have a lot to do with the times that shaped them.

In the late 60s Bowie was a cute, pop-idol-wannabe Mod performing art
songs in the clubs of swinging London. Stanley Kubrick’s movie masterpiece
2001 A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, and Bowie retaliated with the
1969 hit song Space Oddity, nicely tied in with the first moon landing. On tour,
his mime act in a dress didn’t go over well at rock festivals, so he changed
strategy. He dropped his ethereal pretensions, embraced hardcore
rock ‘n’ roll, eyed Andy Warhol’s Factory gang, borrowed some edginess
from Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, and blasted off with some 
really excellent songs. Five Years, Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide, Lady Stardust,
Suffragette City, etc. chronicled a self-obsessed rock star who wavered
between saving the world and saving himself. Ziggy was sort of an
operatic combination of  Michael Rennie in The Day the Earth Stood Still,
a hustler from John Rechy’s City of Night and a Jean Genet drag queen.
Reviewers and critics liked the fact that Bowie was taking the piss out
of self-reverential, self-referencing rock ‘n’ roll. This was sexy, intelligent 
parody, even self-mockery. And Bowie had the talent to keep’em hooked.

If Bowie’s Ziggy was Lady Stardust, then Manson’s Omega is Bride of
Frankenstein Stardust. Ziggy was a man in drag. Omega is a half-baked
hermaphrodite. Ziggy was sexy, aggressive, self-made. Omega is
neutered, passive, controlled by handlers. Ziggy was as lithe as a
panther. Omega lurches, and poses. Ziggy was tragic and romantic.
Omega is pathetic. When Bowie created Ziggy, the space age was
thrusting forward, rockets hurtling toward the moon, satellites probing 
beyond. Omega has appeared long since we gave up on the moon,
and instead focus on a putting together a placid international space
station which will calmly float in 
orbit.

Marilyn Manson—his real name is Brian Warner—has named himself
after a female sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, and a male mass murderer,
Charles Manson. So have his past and present band members; Madonna
Wayne Gacy, for example. This self-mockery isn’t lost on Mechanical
Animals. The Dope Show video features Manson stumbling through
or performing in a variety of landscapes evoking a vacuous 
Los Angeles overloaded on drugs and celebrity. At one moment
Manson’s an outer space moron, the next he’s an outer space supermodel,
the next he’s retro-Ziggy. When asked by Canada’s MuchMusic to
explain a controversial bit featuring pink-outfitted (male) riot police
kissing each other, Manson said, “I was arrested once and strip-searched. 
I guess you could say this is my way of giving something 
back to the community.”

Out-of-persona, Manson is softspoken, down-to-earth and quotably
witty, like Bowie. They both know when it’s time to hang up the space suit.
And differences aside, there is an eerie echo in their songs, an echo
that reverberates across the decades:

	“...here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world,
	planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do....”
	Bowie, Space Oddity, 1969

	“..I can never get out of here
	I don’t want to just float in fear
	a dead astronaut in space...”
	Manson, Disassociative, 1998

Originally published in U Magazine

© Guy Babineau 2003

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