Manson -- the new pop icon?

As the stars rolled down the red carpet before this year's MTV Video Music Awards (VMAs) began, the pre-show VJs were waiting to ask them which stars they themselves were excited to see that evening. Two answers consistently came back: Madonna and Marilyn Manson.

I myself was watching for the same two reasons. The highlight of my evening ended up being Manson's performance of "The Dope Show" from his new album, Mechanical Animals. He strutted around stage in a candy colored, double-sexed, buttless leather body-suit, while robot-dancing and telling the star-studded audience what they'd rather not hear: "They all love you when you're on all the covers / When you're not, they love another." Cops in pink uniforms danced with each other in the background. The performance stuck in my mind for all these reasons, but most of all for having completely surpassed Madonna's act.

The VMAs have traditionally been an opportunity for Madonna to upstage absolutely everybody with her performance (e.g. the writhing bride rendition of Like A Virgin or the Marie Antoinette execution of Vogue.) This year, watching her perform two songs from her new album, I cringed with embarrassment as she tried and failed to create sexual chemistry with guitarist Lenny Kravitz, while her own tired video played in the background.

Once upon a time, Madonna was an ever-present point of light, winking at me from a thousand TV screens and magazine covers, telling me that the culture of commodity could hide beneath it something with real energy, humor and intelligence. She had a combination of authentic rebellion and slick egoism, a certain something that the world couldn't help but fall in love with. I still hold a place in my heart for her, and I won't say that she no longer has that something, but it has certainly faded with time. Marilyn Manson, on the other hand, has got it in spades.

While he will probably never have the stature or longevity of Madonna, Manson has much in common with her. They have both criticized Christianity, while acknowledging its positive aspects and influence on their work. They both have "outrageous," genderfucking performance personae, which attract teenage fans (Manson prefers to call them "friends"), while at the same time giving articulate, thoughtful interviews, which have forced non-fans to sit up and take notice. They have both harnessed the iconic power of Marilyn Monroe to launch their own careers. And they have both made good choices of producers who have helped them define their sounds, which has garnered them both criticism for being constructed. But what performer isn't constructed? Not only are these performers constructed, but that is what we love about them.

And there end the similarities. Madonna's work has always implicitly been about self-construction; as she has moved through her various masks we have been forced to reckon with the malleability of personality. This process has challenged many American ideas about gender, religion and race, but has never directly confronted the mass-media which perpetuates our illusions. Manson has gone a step further, by explicitly making fame one of his central themes. And while Madonna has often spoken publicly about how she has tried to use fame to satisfy her need for affection, Manson has actually made his art about that experience, and especially its darkside. Even his and his bandmates' names - for example Madonna Wayne Gacy, the keyboardist - directly poke fun at the cult of personality.

While Madonna seemed to be telling us "express yourself - look how much fun I'm having," Manson says "express yourself-or be miserable (and you might just be miserable anyway)." When he sings, "Lifelike and poseable / hopeless and disposable," he is connecting the experience of being famous to the experience of being lonely and young in the middle of nowhere. By using fame as a metaphor for everyday alienation, he connects with teenagers everywhere who are wading through a culture that offers fame as a panacea for loneliness. Manson debunks this myth from through the looking glass, supplementing Madonna's wink with a violent wretch, and this makes him, to my mind, the best thing going in the world of Pop right now.

In the song "New Model No. 15," he sings: "I'm the new, I'm the new, new model / I've got nothing inside." If Manson is just a lonely soul trying to win your affection by hiding behind a false identity, at least he admits it, unlike the majority of the stars with whom he shares the firmament this season. How long he will stay relevant and in the spotlight remains to be seen. Those of us who count ourselves among his "friends" are hoping it will be a while.