Anal Beads.

I think the two have a lot in common in that they take their stage persona very seriously, and really play their character when they're recording and when they're performing. Manson gets an awfully bad rap for how good his early career was IMO.

Not completely true. They like to paint that picture though. Juggalos used to jump people for liking Eminem. Like, if you went to a juggalo show with Eminem merchandise you'd get jumped. They definitely did not take well to Tila or BubbaSparxxx. Anything they think is mainstream or too popular they will hate with out thinking twice. Why I find them annoying. Plus their trendy hatred of Emos, Hipsters etc. that every body jumps on the bandwagon of.

And Batlord, don't blame the fans for ICP's ****ty music. If ICP was pandering to juggalos they would put out another Hell's Pit. Juggalos have been begging ICP to go back to doing darker music like that again. A lot of juggalos hate their new poppy bull****. That's all ICP. They chose to cover Christina Agulara while juggalos wanted another Hell's Pit. They chose to rap about magnets while juggalos wanted another Riddle Box. This ****ty development of the past decade is all Violent J's idea that he's been trying to shove down the juggalos throats. In fact, Violent J said the he didn't even really want to do that album because after Shangri La he wanted to make happier music or something because he found god or some dumb ****.

And I still take Marilyn Manson. His first 4 albums were incredible. The 5th was alright then he definitely fell off losing his creativity. He seems to be making a comeback, but no where near as good as it once was. I think Manson was more shocking because he was more raw and real than Cooper who was goofy and campy to me. Manson made genuinely disturbed music that attracted genuinely disturbed people and I think that shocked more people than Cooper did. I remember watching something where Manson received a really depressing letter from a 12 year old that was written in his own blood. Not only that, but Manson had a point. He wasn't just shocking for the shake of shocking. He had intelligent things to say. That's not something you see a lot of in shocking artists. Manson in his heyday was a cultural icon and a voice for a generation. He was probably the last artist to really scare people too.

I don't know, Lucem. I lived in the era of Alice Cooper and parents were absolutely terrified of the guy.

I will agree with your points about Marilyn Manson though. I do think he may have thought out what he did a little more than Cooper and, in Bowling in Columbine at least, he proved to be quite the articulate fellow. I actually started this thread because I did think Manson was being unfairly targeted by who I thought were people, probably in my age group, that had conveniently forgotten about Alice Cooper.

I wasn't around for it and I guess I never really looked into Alice enough to understand how shocking he was back then. Just going off of the little I've seen and honestly it's probably past his prime. I just know that he hasn't been forgotten though it's only been 20 years. Not that Cooper has been forgotten he's just not as well remembered or as prominent of an influence these days. Might have more to do with Manson probably being much more mainstream and a huge pop star.

For Manson, I think the biggest thing that shocked people was how polarizing he was to his fans. They would start dressing like him and wearing the outlandish clothes and kind of use this as a temporary identity crutch where as I don't think Cooper fans really tried to adopt the persona.

That's true. We didn't dare go out dressed like Alice Cooper. He might have been seen as a little gay by the homophobes that were around in that time.

Of course it was different by the time Kiss came around. People would wear their makeup and would try to breathe fire like Gene Simmons to their own peril. I may have mentioned it either here or on another forum, but one kid breathed fire for an English project and almost blew his face off (he did singe his eyebrows some). He got an A. :laughing:

I guess the guy who started all that before Alice, Kiss and Marylin was Arthur Brown, back in the 60s. I don't know of anyone earlier than him in Rock music doing that kind of stuff, farding make-up, playing with fire, donning outlandish costumes, etc etc.
http://www.nndb.com/people/141/00006...rown-sized.jpg

Actually Screamin Jay Hawkins might be the earliest. Alice Cooper might have the first to have become a major star though (Brown was basically a one hit wonder- at least in the States anyway).