On the cover of his new album Marilyn Manson tries to look pensive. A different twist to the shocktactic cover choices of “Holy wood” or “Antichrist Superstar”. Has the former central identification factor for teenage rebellion grown up or is he just pondering a change in image that will make him retain his old fans (now turning 18) and gain him some new fans (now getting old enough to buy CDs own their own, wear make-up and tear their black clothes all alone.) very much like Madonna and her marketing crew do every three or four years. I well remember strolling down a shopping street in Vienna and two teenage girls in cute black dresses, torn t-shirts, coloured hair parts, piercings, and whatever else seems necessary walk in front of me. Suddenly they spot a nun coming their way and giggling like complete morons (they are teenagers after all, so there is only a thin margin anyway) they shout “Satan” and “Manson” at her. And the nun flashes a bright smile and walks over to them, thinking she has found contact to a group of young girls that she might be able to lead into the rightful way. Which shows that a) Manson is important for teenage rebellion, at least the save version that comes all inclusive with good grades at school and parental guidance[1] and b) that nuns are more tolerant and openminded than you might think.

Back to Mansons-marketing strategies. That the last entry on the Austrian Manson-official-fansite before the news of the new CD is from June 2006 and that the Austrian forum dedicated to manson is closed is not a good thing sales-wise. On the other hand, there seem to be more and more gothic shops in this city. Not like Totem, which has cool books and music and is like the speciality dealer in everthing dark, but ones that look like those strange chinese shops only with a policy on black textiles only and more metal studs on everything. The number of Strange Emily (or whatever that weird girl comic character is called) merchandise to be spotted on the streets is also fascinating. “Pirates of the Caribbean” also did its part to raise the number of skulls on clothes. Then again the hype around the suicide girls seems to have faded off a long time ago, so all in all it is hard to say where Manson is positioned now. He has definitely made his way from the frontpages of the tabloids to the society pages of lifestyle magazines and the label “shock-rocker” has lost its provocative appeal and sounds like something to put on your business cards nowadays. (Don’t use skulls or they’ll think you’re on the cast of “Pirates 4”. Or would that be Pirates 4.0?”) Definitely his wife had a lot to do with that. Just take a look at the picture. What would you do?

Career choices are a tough nut to be cracked if you are around fourty and specialised yourself in a minor field, which is closing in fast. You suddenly find yourself losing your market, like someone who is a master programmer in Cobol or some other outdated software language. Or if you just opened a tatoo shop and suddenly find that the trend for putting black ink under your skin has vanished and you better had opened a shop for tatoo removal. The financial side for alternative rockers suddenly finding themselves on the other side of thirty something seems to be rather bleak. Or what other reason is there for the rising number of desperate re-unions of bands that were great ten years ago Examples: The Mission, The Cult, The Pixies, Gang of Four, Wire, and so on. Throbbing Gristle and The Police don’t count. And lately the Smashing Pumpkins – yes, that is Billy Corgan below there doing the devil’s horn, whose solo-career didn’t work out, even though we liked that Zwan record, and who is back to rocking on festival stages. It seems as if being on the cover of The Rolling Stone or Visions magazine doesn’t make you Paul McCartney. And keeping up the rockstar living without the cash flow of a running band doesn’t make sense economically. If even the sales of your own action figure dribble down, it is time to think of something new. And all of a sudden, and like an ageing stripper they find themselves doing the same routines over and over again only with more pain in the back, less energy and more fear off the young bands standing in line to enter the stage after them. Fortunately, Manson isn’t all that stupid, so he started a career in painting to go along with his music in the last years. That should pay for a few bottles of absinthe.

Okay, so a lot of people will think now, what does he even care, Manson is either a retard or a marketing ploy to rip off teenagers during their rebellion phase. Why bother? And I have pretty good answer which is right with the times: I haven’t got a clue. Or in the parlance of our times: Yeah, whatever. After all, I don’t even get aggravated about Bon Jovi calling his latest album “Lost Highway” anymore. I mean, that is an insult to David Lynch and Hank Williams. There are two realistic reasons though: one is that I always like the visual side of Manson, especially in the videos, which one in three times I watched with the sound turned off, the other times I couldn’t be bothered. I mean, he sported a pair of tits at approximately the same time that Genesis P. Orridge did, and even if his were fake and Genesis’ are for real, Manson’s definitely did a lot more for kicking kids’ minds all around the world. The other reason is that for some mystical magic the review of Manson’s autobiography I did years ago was one of the things that gained the highest count of visits in a long time. Go figure.

So all the while Manson has been dissolving himself into our intestines, turned into meta-matter to gain a new level of existence, and I couldn’t hum a single song from the album that has been running in the background. A good sign, I would say. Except maybe for that “Rabbit in the headlight” thing, because it reminds me of that great track by Unkle. It is decent and has some old fashioned guitar solos on there. It’ll probably bomb big time.