Marilyn Manson & In This Moment

[The Empirical Guy]

Anyone who has spent any amount of time talking to me about music no doubt knows I am a big fan of the band In This Moment. I believe a while back now I made mention of a visual parallel between the two, however lately I've become aware of a growing number of similarities. While many could fit in to a number of different threads here, I thought I would collate them all in to one place.

The first similarity I noticed was a couple of years back, when their singer Maria Brink started to appear on stage with a microphone stand that reminded me of Manson's early years:



Compare the broken, disfigured dolls with those that frequently scattered the stage during the Portrait era:



More dolls seen hanging in the top corners around the 1 minute mark:



As if that wasn't enough, compare the top centrepiece skull with the one that appears in the booklet for Portrait Of An American Family:



Here things begin to move beyond a simple visual comparison, as you compare the opening riff of their song 'The Gun Show' with the riff from 'Antichrist Superstar':





That was all stuff first picked up on a couple of years ago, however as In This Moment have released a new album recently, I've found a bunch of new stuff worth mentioning. First of all, this is the cover for the first single from their new album, 'Blood':



and image that, while we would normally expect it to be somewhat sexual with it's depiction of naked women, seems to in fact be lacking in sexuality and identity with the features of their faces, and the nipples and genitalia removed from the photograph, a somewhat similar theme behind one of Manson's own album covers:



an image which Manson himself has said was intended to express "sexlessness and vulnerability".

Fast forward a few years in Manson's career and we reach the early 2000's, a period where for a time he took to wearing a military style cap



Not too dissimilar to the one sported by Maria of late:



and of course, it is not the only headwear that the two have shared their likeness in...





Once the album came out, I also found a number of likenesses and themes throughout. The album's opener, 'Rise With Me', includes the repeated lyric "Just say tonight/ You'll die here with me", which reminded me of both the "I hope at least that we die holding hands" of 'The Speed Of Pain', 'Spade's "And we said 'til we die", and the Bonnie and Clyde references made throughout the Eat Me, Drink Me era. What's more, the song 'Whore' contains the chorus line "I am the dirt you created", which seems reminiscent of Manson's statement of "I am your shit", while the music for the song (mostly the guitar at the start), to my ear, wouldn't seem too out of place on Eat Me, Drink Me or The Golden Age Of Grotesque:



That's about it for now. I find it interesting as I'm fond of both bands and, while there has been a notable absence of In This Moment mentioning Manson as being an influence or inspiration to their own work, there clearly seems to be some strong parallels between them in different areas.

[RipVanTassel]

Looks like they are copycats to me.

[A Better Messiah]

Some of the stuff at the beginning I was uncertain of, but as you progressed through your post many of these things are straight-up indisputable. Nice fond, and it's refreshing to see analysis of bands influenced by Marilyn Manson rather than vice-versa.

[SangreV]

I thought the same at first but yeah, there is a connection there.

[Kollaps]

While there are parallels between the bands, there is one thing that will always keep them worlds apart:

Marilyn Manson wrote music history with the triptych.

In This Moment are fucking generic, thoughtless SHIT.

[The Empirical Guy]

Looks like they are copycats to me.

I'm going to assume it's in jest when you call someone a copycat on a Marilyn Manson forum.

Some of the stuff at the beginning I was uncertain of, but as you progressed through your post many of these things are straight-up indisputable. Nice fond, and it's refreshing to see analysis of bands influenced by Marilyn Manson rather than vice-versa.

Cheers, I pretty much had the same thought. At first I thought it was pure coincidence, but as time went on and I spotted more and more stuff, it became pretty apparent there were some connections to be made.

While there are parallels between the bands, there is one thing that will always keep them worlds apart:

Marilyn Manson wrote music history with the triptych.

In This Moment are fucking generic, thoughtless SHIT.

That was eloquent of you. I see you even found the BOLD button. However, I made this thread for a discussion on the topic at hand, not for you to trash on a band you don't like - an opinion clearly formed by someone who hasn't spent much time studying their target before spouting off at them. But if you'll excuse me now, I have to go and read through the MM/ Lady Gaga thread and very carefully not make posts about how much I hate Lady Gaga.

[Kollaps]

I see that I have annoyed you. This has made my cock hard.

Honestly, though, they really do just sound like another American metal band. That film clip of 'The Gun Show' made me cringe. The guys looking at each other with rock n' roll satisfaction, the skimpy bitch marching around. This may as well be The Pretty Wreckless.

To keep it on topic though, the parallels have been duly noted but it pretty much goes to show me why someone who is into Marilyn Manson wouldn't get into this band. Marilyn Manson just seems like a good version of In This Moment. I mean, people get things from listening to MM, why go to another band for exactly the same thing? I love Bowie and the parallels between the two artists are undeniable but there was still an enormous amount of freshness to Mechanical Animals (which obviously had various visual parallels to Ziggy and what not). It seems like In This Moment have just copied shit instead of interpreting the ideas themselves.

Anyway, if anyone else made this thread it would have been moved to the visual parallels thread. I'd eat out Lady Gaga's ass until I found Madonna before I got into In This Moment.

[tricky]

Interesting. I've been a huge fan of In This Moment since their MySpace days, but had never noticed this. I think it's mostly coincidental, but I'd be curious to know if she is a Marilyn Manson fan.

[kalim123]

but I'd be curious to know if she is a Marilyn Manson fan.

You mean they, not she.

[Willice]

Funny that OTEP also has a mic stand with a baby' head on it (Google it). I guess people that are girls or look like girls in metal bands like dead babies.

The more you know.