From: B. Corwin
Neil, Everyone's heard the expression "opinion's are like assholes". After reading your article I'm convinced that your stinks the worst. I'm a musician and have been playing in bands for over ten years. I think it's really refreashing to see a awesome heavy band like Manson selling millions of records again. We're getting back to what Rock N' Roll is all about, a killer heavy groove and a image that scares people. A rock band with a positive image? Who want's to see that? When I go to a concert I don't want to see a band that looks like a lawn care crew. I want to see long haired, out of control, crazy people! But what it really comes down to is the music. So many people are caught up in Manson's stage antic's and personal life that they forget to focus on the music. Manson's lyrics are articulate and intense. "Portrait of an American Family" has some of the coolest groove metal music I've heard in years. At least you can dislike him and still laugh about. I can respect you for that. Even if you don't like him, he's still entertaining to watch. I laugh at him too. And I'm sure he's laughing even harder, all the way to the bank. B. Corwin
From: Monk
I would just like to say that in my opinion I think you are entirely wrong about Mr. Manson in nearly every respect.As far as his affiliation with the Church of Satan goes, it is minimal. He has never claimed to be Satanic. If the Church ended today he would still be singing tomarrow. If his position was to spread the word that the Church of Satan tries to get across then why do I see nothing about it in any one of his songs? Odd isn't it? I wonder where you got (made up) your information on this subject.
Furthermore, you describe his lyrics as cheesy with the possible exeption of "The Reflecting God" and "Man That You Fear". I suggest looking at a few of the lyrics. Try to understand them before you critizice them. I can see how an uninteligent person might see them and disregard them as cheesy but you have to look at them further. There is an enormous amount of symbolism in many of Marilyn Manson's songs.
There are several pages that offer help in the symbolism if you need them. I suggest looking at "Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World", "Little Horn", and "Dope Hat" also has some easy symbolism for beginers.
-Monk
Form: "Kidease"
After reading your article on Marilyn Manson, I was surprised by the total lack of investigation that went into it. To set the record straight, Manson does not even believe in satan. He is a minister in the church of satan because it presents an alternative form of religion, that is much more akin to Fredrich Nietsche's ideas of the overman. Many of Manson's lyrics have roots in Nietzsche's philosophy, the most obvious is the use of the worm analogy from Nietzsche's famous Thus spoke Zarathustra. To write an artical about Manson without the knowledge of his true philosophy leads to a poor, and one sided article. Furthermore, on the issue of "shock-value", Manson does use this, but if there is nothing to say once you are shocked into attention, it is worthless. Manson may very well be in it for the money, but at least he will tell you so (as he did in a recent Penthouse interview). Manson's music is designed to talk to the people that understand it, and scare the people that don't. Unfortunatley, the great majority of Manson's fans don't understand the music, rather they enjoy being frightened, and frightening others. If one is to understand the music, and disagree with it on philosophical grounds, that is one thing, but it is another to write a scathing article, without knowing all of the facts.
From: Bothered In Canada
How can you make these claims about manson? I bet you were all over alice cooper and iggy pop too. People like you should shut the fuck up. Whether it's from lack of information or just having you head shoved up your christian butt, I don't know. I like manson because of his musical talent and originality. Plus he gets all you guys to fly off the handle. I don't worship satan, or manson, or god. It's good that this world has so many diffrent religions to deal with, or we'd all be anal. Doesn't your "god" teach you tolerance? You won't convince or convert any manson fan, you're just screwing our parents around with your lies. Gee, this sounds awful mean of me, but hey. I'm an unemployed youth whose sick of all the shit she has to put up with. Did I have a point, hmmm, no. I'll get my sorry ass out of here and quit wasting my time. Bothered in Canada.
From: "Silv81"
Where the hell do you get off saying that Manson is a fake? They are different but they are INDIVIDUALS. You believe and do what they want and so do they. The only reason that you have to publicize that stuff is because you are AFRAID! If you really understood what they are trying to say, you would feel totally different. Why don't you try to understand what they are saying and where they are coming from, instead of just dissing them because of Marilyn's religion? The only one that has anything to do with Satan at all is Marilyn. But unlike you he's not saying that your a fake because you don't belive what he does. And the music is some of the best stuff out there. If you listen to the music you will hear how beautiful it is. And yes they did get big by the Sweet Dreams song. But do you see how many people started listening to them by that? And now how many "followers" they now have? You really should listen to the music instead of just the religous stuff. Who even cares about that? Listen and find out how great they really are.
[There's only so many of these we'll print, those are just the newest ones we've received]
Borcek => The general impression received by these letters is that there was no research done before the Marilyn Manson article was prepared. Do those that attack the article on it's religious side realize what the Church Of Satan stands for? I can assure you that we know what they stand for; they certainly do not worship an actual entity known as Satan. In the same respect you should try to find out what happened in the early 1970's, when the sudden change was brought forth by Dr.LaVey; exactly why did a significant portion of the CoS following leave and form the Temple Of Set?
Nonetheless, MM's music is not the most impressive in the world. Those of you that actually believe it is have not been exposed to a wide variety of music. It barely qualifies as metal, so don't say that it is great metal. The whole excessive appearance aspect of the band is completely drawn from the 80's glam scene, we don't need to see that happen again.
In the end MM has listenable music that I have no problem with people enjoying. But none of us that listen to real metal and the extreme genres want some "thing" like MM going around destroying venues, inciting riots, and otherwise doing things that make it more difficult for the truly talented metal bands to get recognized.
From: Alex G.
Yo,
Your Warzone review bothered me. To say that they are just run of the mill nyhc is false. It has nothing to do with how intimidating Ray's vocals sound, its the message. Hardcore is not sound it's meaning. I know ray well enough to tell him that your talkin shit about his name being cheesy. Warzone is the best band out. They are much better than that cock rock you probably listen to.
Neil => Warzone in my opinion is still a fairly bland band. There is much better hardcore out there to be listened to. And if all my other arguments fail, "Ray Beez", "J Sin", and "Vinnie Value" are cheesy names.
From: Martin
If You mean by saying "drumming is still bit off-beat" on Cradle Of Filth's Dusk..... album, You must be very fuckin' wrong!!!I've listened COF's all 3 albums through many times (don't ask how many, I can't even count that far!) and I haven't heard a single mistake!
Nicholas is one of most accurate drummers I've ever heard. I recently saw (and heard...:) them live, and band played very well. COF played about one and half hours, and not one mistake were heard... And that's totally fucking true!!!
So, that's all and now I'm going to read Your pages more. Bye!
Borcek => I thought I should put this here to point out that, as in this case, certain expressions such as "off-beat" sometimes come across as meaning the wrong thing. Feel free to clarify anything with us, send mail to the reviewer or to Borcek@ratw.com to have it forwarded. Being an international publication, with many non-native english speakers, and those in different cultures, it's reasonable to expect certain things won't come across right.