KRUSTY THE CLOWN RETURNS WITH MORE

Marilyn Manson had promised he was going to give up rock and roll - okay, he was going to give up popgoth in order to concentrate on something else. But it seems he was only toying with us, like a bloke who storms out the pub and hangs around in the car park hoping someone rushes out after him. God knows what persuaded Manson to give his clowning another go - presumably an email going "sorry to hear your decision, we'll be happy to provide a reference" - but whatever it is, he's made a new album and come up with the sort of twittering that even Craig from Corrie would think pushing it a bit:

"The time that people aren't expecting what's going to happen, I find that's the best time to really cause the damage that needs to be done," Manson explained. "I might have had to defuse people with a smoke screen of weakness and the idea that I was going to run away from music when I was really just trying to find the bullets for my gun — metaphorically, of course. But I was contemplating giving up entirely. It's a sort of philosophy that I find to be true that if your life is collapsing around you, sometimes you have to be willing to let go."

Yes, Marilyn, you're going to "cause the damage that needs to be done", because you're such a threat to everything the straight world holds dear, aren't you? (Except when you're snuffling to Rolling Stone that it's mean to blame you for Columbine because it's all an act, of course.)

But maybe we're being unfair - he has been creating a smokescreen of weakness - and quite impressively, too. Five albums worth of weak goth and lame attempts to shock by saying "bum" and wearing Rimmel has been a pretty effective screening. We wonder what he's doing behind it. Perhaps he's stuffing envelopes for the Republicans?

Or maybe just producing even shittier goth-lite:

Most of Manson's still-untitled sixth LP has been finished for weeks.

"I feel as if there's more like three albums' worth of material, [because] I don't want to cram a long record into a place that doesn't have the attention span for that," he said. "I'd like to return to the old-fashioned records that had eight or nine songs [that] were all very important. Not to say that I made records that had filler material. They were all based around a central idea, and the central idea in this one is my pain and its ability to be unashamed to repeat itself."

We're not sure what the central ideas were in his last albums - seemed to be "do a cover of a familiar song to knock out as a single and get some tits in the video" most often - but that's got to be better than Manson's pain. (Kidney stones?)

As for the musicians he's been working with, Manson said, "It's hard to call [them] a band because it's open and developing in a way where anything can happen. The songs have been ... a collaboration between [Tim] Skold and myself, but we're at the point now where the people who will fulfill the positions that need to be there to make the Marilyn Manson of end times, the Marilyn Manson that, if it had to be the last form, this is the way it should be remembered — those people will stand forward and make themselves appreciated, and I feel like I've created an environment where that will happen."

Oh god, he really talks some old bloody rubbish, doesn't he? Don't get us wrong, it's nice to see a bit of hucksterism in pop, but Manson has long since gone into EastEnders territory, trying to find a way to bring back a character that's already been written out, killed off, used up. He hasn't finished yet, mind:

"[Skold] has turned out to be the guitar god Marilyn Manson always needed," he revealed. "His guitar playing is something that completely seduced me into liking [music] again. It was almost a naked woman to a man who's just gotten out of prison, because I felt like I was in a prison of sorts, of my own creation. I was preparing a hole for myself, really, and finding nice clothes to be buried in. Instead, the hole will make a nice place for people to wait [for] a V.I.P. party that's not going to happen, on their way to hell, and I'm just going to have a fashion show afterward."

What we don't get is how Skold went from being in KMFDM (Kill Motherfucking Depeche Mode, of course) to being guitar, uh, whore for the Mode-covering Manson. Will Skold end up having to play Personal Jesus on tour?

So, anyway, back to Manson. This album is about his pain, remember:

The album's lyrics, he said, were inspired by his muse, fiancee Dita Von Teese.

"They have probably the most romantic feel to them," he said. "This is a desperate and crippling desire for romance — not in the romance sense of a Reese Witherspoon movie, but in the sense of living your life like a film and enjoying it that way. I've found a woman I can relate to. That's something — and I don't even feel sappy saying it — that, if anyone has that, don't lose it, because it's probably the only thing that you can ever really find any satisfaction from."

Yes, that sounds like you're, uh, suffering there, Marilyn. Go on, shock us some more:

"We created a snare-drum sound with a bottle of painkillers," he explained. "We often get sent to the house — the wife and I — an assortment of sexual marital aids that are also very useful as percussive instruments. When hitting a rubber penis against a leather couch, I found a bass-drum sound that's unmatched by any other."

Oh, Marilyn. You're not talking about dildoes, are you? How thrilling to see you mentioning a product that you can only buy in bloody Boots The Chemists and Anne 'Vanilla Flavoured Sex Stores' Summers on every high street in the country. What a serious threat you are to everything we, our wives, our children, our pets and our local scout troops hold dear. Now, why don't you go and take that PVC basque off, chuck, that must be chaffing your nipples red raw.

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