Album Review
by Flint Ronson
12-5-2003
   
   
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MM: as safe & boring as cosmetic grass
Marilyn Manson : 'The Golden Age Of Grotesque'
(Interscope)
Marilyn Manson is a ‘God of F**k’ off


Skin someone live asked me May; whatever, the other day, a doom-watcher retorteth. Football and soap operas, fleshwounds and too much dreaming. Marilyn Monroe, theology, sins and crime; Brit-this and –that, American pornography. Naked Manson, ‘mOBSCENE’, while waiting for a confirmation of the ‘New Rock Revolution’.

American Hi-Fi interview, “What the Noughties will be remembered for?” Abnormally, the revolt has died, “Mediocrity is the SARS of culture’. Vogue, the Life of little Brian. There isn’t an answer due to invasion of pretend-democratisation of creativity (via television). The last musical genre that shocked the world is redundant. As shocking as a stripper’s torso! Brutal passion has petered out to be replaced by cameos at the fringes of the absurd.

It has produced its antithesis, sis. Establishment’s not only stopped caring but it hails the mundane, dumb, recycled, hyped, frivolous… ‘Artistry’ is a dirty concept when all we want is innocuous entertainment, as commodifying as a pacifier; low expectations and even lower level of demand; Spinal Tap. Storming the frontiers of Rock’n’Roll Babylon. Caricature from a Sci-fi book. What now appears like some parallel universe, it looked all-so rosy in the Garden of Teenagers, the 1960-vintage.

The Beatles were decorated back in the day. Target, market, consumers, contrived and processed quality for mega-profitable business of nostalgia, an oasis of ephemera. Daily inflation, the venality of masses... Tabloid ‘fame’ known as Celeb-lab’s ridicule! Money, music, fashion, design, drugs and drinks… Hype, beanstock to a sand-castle, cumulonimbus; wake up call from ‘La comedia erratica’. Disposable fame; history channel – Charlie Chaplin. Maximosis. Incurrable.

This ‘Grotesque’ review has been created by using David Bowie’s method of cut-up Bauhausian-technique to truly reflect the Manson’s new album. Muddle, same-ammo, recycled paranoia… Hard-up on goodies, mainly extraneous material; it should carry a warning – For U-14 only!

On a G-scale, it's minus the devil’s number, or half of it. That’s precisely how many words are here.

4/10


Flint Ronson
12-5-2003
Marilyn Manson’s album ’The Golden Age Of Grotesque’ is released 12 May 2003 by Interscope/UMG