| "Marilyn Manson is innocent" - the Guardian
You've got to feel a little sorry for Marilyn Manson. The goth rocker's bony knuckles can be justly rapped for many things - failing to appreciate that less is more in the make-up game, for one - but, over his 10-year career, he has been blamed for more misdemeanours than most.
First, he was erroneously implicated in the 1999 Columbine school shootings - the teenage killers were identified as Manson fans, when the truth was they thought he "sucked". Then in 2000, three Italian school girls - whose diaries were filled with snapshots of Manson - murdered a 61-year-old nun. And when more teenagers in Arras, France, raided the graves of British war heroes in 2003, the finger of blame was pointed squarely at the singer. Most weirdly, when on tour in Italy, Manson was arrested for apparently "tearing off his genitals", live on stage. Now it has been reported in the press that Luke Mitchell, last week convicted of murdering his girlfriend Jodi Jones, was "under the spell of Manson".
Manson - a master self-publicist - doesn't always help matters. At Kerrang! magazine's awards ceremony in 2001, he caused controversy by claiming there is "nothing like a good school shooting to inspire a record". But generally, Manson's influence is too easily overstated. He's just too irresistible, too easy a target. Plus there's that easily recalled fact that Manson's real name is actually Brian.
Yet proper metallers claim Manson isn't scary at all. "There's a lot of bands that will make Manson piss his pants," wrote "Infazeal", a poster on one message board, namechecking groups such as Dying Bride and Norwegian dwarf fanatics Dimmu Borgir.
"Here we go again," says Ashley Bird, editor of Kerrang! magazine, refuting suggestions that Manson's music encourages violent behaviour. "His songs are not about murdering people - his message is that there are a lot of people out there who feel forgotten and misunderstood." Plus Bird met Manson once and can report that "he's very funny, a really nice bloke - closer in spirit to David Bowie than anyone else because of his theatricality".
On a similar theme, Johnny Depp has revealed that his muse for his role as Willy Wonka in the new film of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was Manson. So you know who to blame should it flop.
Helen Pidd | 
