“I write phrases constantly and I have about 15 different notebooks going at the same time. I’ll write lots of different things in each book. I have to lay them all out in the same place and pull things from each of them to write a song. I was on tour and I remember recording it on my four-track with Twiggy [Ramirez, bass] and my drummer Ginger [Fish] in a hotel room. It was somewhere in the South, which is ironic. I remember playing the drum beat on the floor and then having my drummer duplicate that on the drum machine. It happened in one day pretty much. It happened maybe two-and-a-half years before ‘Antichrist Superstar’ was released, and if I played you that four-track recording, it would sound identical.“
“And I don’t want you and I don’t need you
Don’t bother to resist, or I’ll beat you
It’s not your fault that you’re always wrong
The weak ones are there to justify the strong“
Marilyn Manson, the self-proclaimed “God of Fuck”, began by interviewing a number of famous artists including Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor. An impressed Reznor would end up listening to Manson’s demo tapes on repeat in his car, eventually signing the artist up to his own personal (now defunct) label Nothing Records, producing the band’s first three releases, and publishing all of their music until Lest We Forget in 2004. They would have a falling out leading to an ongoing feud with both accusing the other of lying.
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Brian Warner, guitarist Putesky and bassist Brian Tutunick recorded their first demo tape as Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in 1990, taking on the respective stage names of Marilyn Manson, Daisy Berkowitz, and Olivia Newton Bundy soon after replaced by Gidget Gein born Brad Stewart, later joined on keyboard by Stephen Bier going by Madonna Wayne Gacy and drummer Fred Streithorst under the guise of Sara Lee Lucas. The stage names adopted by each member were representative of a concept the band considered central: the dichotomy of good and evil, and the existence of both, together, in every whole. “Marilyn Monroe had a dark side“, explained Manson in his autobiography, “just as Charles Manson has a good, intelligent side.” Over the next six years, all of the band’s members would adopt names that combined the first name of a female sex symbol and the surname of a serial killer.
“The beautiful people, the beautiful people
It’s all relative to the size of your steeple
You can’t see the forest for the trees
And you can’t smell your own shit on your knees“
“The Beautiful People” is lyrically entwined with the Antichrist Superstar album’s overarching theme, a semi-narrative examination of the Nietzschean Übermensch. Within this context, it deals explicitly with the destructive manifestation of the Will to Power (“There’s no time to discriminate / Hate every motherfucker that’s in your way“), while also exploring Nietzsche’s view of master-slave morality (“It’s not your fault that you’re always wrong / The weak ones are there to justify the strong“), particularly the concept’s connection with Social Darwinism and its relation to various political and economic systems such as capitalism and fascism (“Capitalism has made it this way / Old-fashioned fascism will take it away“). [wikipedia.org]
“Fascist imagery, whether blatant or subversive, exists in everything. Rock’n’roll, sports, politics, they all carry an element of it. Totalitarianism fascinates me because I see it everywhere. You are told from birth to death that if you don’t participate in various capitalist rituals, ie consumption, good behavior, religious worship, you won’t be accepted, loved or beautiful. That underlying suppression affects you and it’s completely ignored … Look, why do people want to be beautiful? To be loved, accepted, conquer their fear of exclusion. I finally realized after years of not being accepted—why not create your own standard and let other people be accepted or rejected by you? We’ve reversed the whole idea of the fascism of beauty and replaced it with our own standard. We destroyed it to create a new way.”
“[We would] swoop down on the town. . . [and] kill everyone that wasn’t beautiful”
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LABEL: NOTHING RECORDS
The final quote is played at the beginning of the song as a heavily distorted spoken sample by Charles Manson family member Tex Watson
I love this song…
He has several albums and there are a number of songs I really like of his, but this one is my favorite. “Disposable Teens”, “This is the New Shit”, and “mOBSCENE” are others. Thanks for sharing. 💀
Me too. Such an anthemic track, industrial and catchy too. I’m also partial to the darkness, lol. Thanks, Marts! 💀
I remember the stir when MM came out. I personally liked the music, but kind of indifferent to the rest. As time went on, I was more on board. Can’t judge a book by it’s cover, which most people did. Funny how image, even though the intention is to get attention and popularity, can also be a detriment.
Truly. A shock band of shock bands, I read somewhere that Manson’s debut album demo (Portrait of an American Family) tape somehow ended up in Trent Reznor’s hands and he listened to it on repeat in his car since he liked it so much, and signed him to his personal record label Nothing. Of course, that’s dust now and they’re feuding. Manson certainly has been a controversial figure with concerts full of sexual theatrics, but as you said, it’s part and parcel of the sales job (though I don’t doubt he enjoys it too). I’ve seen several of his interviews and he’s surprisingly well spoken and quite intelligent. I only like a handful of his songs, but I like those songs a lot, most of which have cool videos too. Thanks for reaching out and I’m glad we share a mutual liking for the dark and outrageous. 💀
I liked his cover of Sweet Dreams.
He certainly made it his own. It has a much darker and slower feel to it that scratches that horror itch. Thanks for sharing! 💀