I Don't Want To Be Marilyn Manson

I want to address the elephant in my room professionally speaking. I'm talking about the comparisons I get to Marilyn Manson. First of all, I want to say that I like Marilyn Manson. He's a solid artist with incredibly catchy songs that appeal to me sonically and conceptually. That being said, I wouldn't cite him as one of my influences. I've only ever owned one Marilyn Manson album and that's Mechanical Animals.

Anyone who knows me personally, knows that my biggest influence is Trent Reznor. I love that guy! His music has touched my life on the deepest most personal levels and his example as someone who has suffered through depression and addiction and made it through has inspired me personally to do the same. I quit drinking and started writing music because of Trent Reznor's example of an artist who can still make amazing art without allowing their demons to rule their life. He is hands down the biggest inspiration to me as an artist and a human being.

Let's get back to Manson though as this blog post is about how I get annoyed(but also kinda flattered) with the incredibly frequent comparison. I want to make one thing abundantly clear and that is in no way have I ever tried to emulate, copy or rip him off. It came to me as a pretty big surprise when I started getting the comparison, over and over and over again. I never saw myself like that and no artist likes to be accused of ripping someone else off. We fancy ourselves as unique, and that uniqueness is very important to us so at first I found it really offensive, but given how prolific of an artist he is, in a weird way it's also flattering.

The comparison can work both for and against me though. On one hand it's kinda good from a marketing standpoint because if I pitch myself as a "female Marilyn Manson" it automatically gives people a reference point. I hate doing it, but as a musician people ask all the time, "who are you comparable to?" I cringe every time I say it, but due to the fact that so many people have given me the Manson comparison, I often end up saying "I'm kinda like a female Marilyn Manson." I hate making a statement like this because while it gives a point of reference it puts me in a box artistically. I don't want to be measured up against another artist.

The comparison started after I released my music video for Lapdance Romance. Looking at the video now, I can see how people see similarities, but it really was not my intent. When I first asked my friend Arcelia Ocana to direct the video she asked me for some references. The two music videos I gave her for inspiration were "Mr. Brightside" by The Killers and "The Perfect Drug" by Nine Inch Nails. 

LAPDANCE ROMANCE

I really loved the burlesque club idea from Mr. Brightside and it was a concept relavent to the theme of the song which is about a stripper and her customer falling in love. Incidentally Mr. Brightside was inspired by the movie Moulin Rouge. So as we can see the core concept from Lapdance Romance, Mr. Brightside and Moulin Rouge is all essentially telling the same story. In the case of Lapdance Romance, it's my own true story.

MR. BRIGHTSIDE

When it comes to how "The Perfect Drug" influenced Lapdance Romance it was on a more artistic level. I wanted to go with an Victorian era inspired aesthetic with a palette that matched the painting Lapdance Romance and the painting for Lapdance Romance has an absinthe glass as one of the key visuals and lyrically uses absinthe intoxication as a metaphor for falling in love. The Perfect Drug was an excellent reference video for art direction.

THE PERFECT DRUG

So if you actually watched all 3 videos you can probably see where I was coming from and how Lapdance Romance was influenced by both "The Perfect Drug" and "Mr. Brightside." If anything I'm ripping off Nine Inch Nails and The Killers, not Marilyn Manson.

Let's move on to the other similarities shall we? We're both artists within the "goth" genre. We're both influenced by Trent Reznor. We both have music videos with a very bold and stylized aesthetic that incorporate the central concepts of the song through visual metaphor. We both paint. Yes, there are similarites, but similarities can be drawn between most artists within a similar genre. Hence, why we have musical genres and subcultures.

The differences between myself and Mr. Manson are far more staggering. First of all, when it comes to the music videos, Marilyn Manson isn't sitting at his day job as an interior designer storyboarding his own music video and then designing the sets, sourcing set dec and props, making the costumes, building and decorating the sets and then shooting the videos in his living room while his kids run around eating up all the food he bought with his own money to feed the cast and crew. 

Second of all, Marilyn Manson unlike myself is a major label artist with "people" who do all that behind the scenes shit for him. Because he is a major label artist he doesn't get his hands dirty in the actual production of the video like I do. He's not the art director of his videos like I am. He's not sitting at his laptop editing his own vocal tracks at 3 am. He's not funding his projects by giving lap dances or working a day job either. As an independent artist I have a much greater degree of creative control over my music & videos because I fund everything with my own money and I'm literally involved in every aspect of the audio & video production process.

Thirdly, we differ on a philosophical level when it comes to our beliefs. He's a huge fan of Anton LeVey and an honorary bishop in the Church of Satan. He has been described as the "highest profile Satanist ever" with strong anti-Christian views. I on the other hand, while not being a religious individual am a theist and see merit in the teachings and philosophies of Jesus Christ. I'm not anti-religion or pro-religion. Religion in my view is benign and can be used as a tool to do great good or tremendous evil. It ultimately is up to the individual and the actions they choose to commit in the name of said religion. Both of our philosophical views are very obviously reflected in our lyrics. On a side note though Marilyn Manson has some really intelligent and insightful lyrics. He's up there as far as my favorite lyricists go. 

Lastly, our sound is different. Just listen to him and listen to me. We may fit withing the same genre, but we sound quite different.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea. As an artist and a person, I just want to be the best version of myself that I can be. I don't want to be Marilyn Manson. Hell, I don't even want to be Trent Reznor! I just want to be Jenny Kirby making art through the project Borg Queen. Besides, Jenny's a lot prettier than both those guys ;)

Little Miss Liquid Courage: Preproduction Introduction

I was on the fence about doing another music video from my album Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles for a couple reasons. The first reason is the huge time and financial commitment involved and secondly I'm really eager to get back to work on my next EP, Blood Sweat Tears. However I feel like I'm leaving something incomplete if I don't make a music video for Little Miss Liquid Courage. It was part of the original plan to make 4 music videos for Sex, Drugs and Shiny Brass Poles and I've decided to stick to the plan.

Context Is Everything

Little Miss Liquid Courage is somewhat of an oddity both visually and sonically. I wrote the song ironically to be a pop song because the big idea behind it is "selling out" and conforming to the mainstream. Within the context of the lyrics it's specifically about the pressure as a woman to conform to mainstream beauty standards. When I was a stripper in my early 20's there was tremendous pressure to look as close as possible to a Barbie doll. The closer you resembled Barbie, the more money the booking agents could demand from the clubs. I personally was told to "soften" my look. What this meant was, dye your hair blond, get a tan, lose weight, cover your tattoos, take out your piercings, get fake tits and stop dancing to punk and metal. At first I was like, "no fucking way" but after 4 weeks of not having any work I caved and took out my piercings, dyed my hair blond, got a spray tan and began dieting. I hated myself for it. I remember being up on stage rather drunk and dancing to J Lo in a pink sequined costume laughing at myself for being a ridiculous parody of a stripper. Little Miss Liquid Courage is the inner monologue I was having at that moment in time.

Telling The Story Through Color

LITTLE MISS LIQUID COURAGE
Art prints are available through my website. Click image to purchase

Color plays a huge role in telling the story. I'm completely out of my comfort zone as far as the palette goes. I gravitate towards blue, greens, reds and purples, but for this video which is visually based on the painting the palette is literally my two most hated colors...pink and yellow. As you can see in the painting below the predominant colors are pink, yellow, red and black.

In the video there are three sequences and sets each using a different symbolic color scheme. The narrative sequence which is non-conformist me singing the song is black and red. I don't know if you've noticed, but my Borg Queen brand colors are black and red.

The play room sequence where the nurses determine whether or not my character is girly enough is predominantly yellow and white. I used yellow a symbol of conformity because in my childhood I went to a private school which was religiously and socially oppressive to the point where I had a nervous breakdown at 12 and had to leave. The uniforms were yellow and I use white to symbolize the innocence of childhood and the sterility of a clinical environment in which my character is being observed.

The operating room where the nurses transform me into a Barbie through a variety of barbaric surgical procedures is pink. Pink is a pretty obvious symbolic color and in this case is used to represent female gender stereotypes.

Here's a little preview of the storyboard video I put together. Normally storyboards don't have color, but what can I say, I'm a bit of an oddity even when it comes to artists. I always like to get feedback so feel free to shoot me an email an let me know your thoughts. Hit me up at borgqueenmusic@gmail.com

If you would like to support this project financially, you can always grab yourself a copy of the album or some merch at my online store https://www.borg-queen-music.com/store