Marilyn Manson completely rips off my karaoke song

So I’m not really for or against Marilyn Manson and his eponymous band.  Don’t mind at all to listen to the songs, some I even like, but I don’t give a rat’s ass about what Marilyn Manson wears, looks like, dates.  If you are paying close enough attention to be shocked or surprised at his appearance or his stage show or whatever, you are feeding into exactly what the band hoped for: attention, press, uproar.  Mister Marilyn Manson can call it artistic expression or whatever, but it all boils down to a big fat paycheck at the end of the day—the more the shock, the outrage, the bigger the paycheck.  Anyhooooo…

I like the Manson cover of “Sweet Dreams.”  Eerie, spooky, enjoyable stuff there, especially as the lyrics are whispered in your ear about three minutes into it, that’s fabulous.  I do not like the cover of “Personal Jesus” at all; Depeche Mode’s original version was uber sexy, let’s strip, get on the horse and ride, and even though they made it their own, Manson’s cover is hollow–on a vaguely related note, Rob Zombie’s “Pussy Liquor” has that same “Personal Jesus” type of riff, and it is completely dance on the coffee table and strip-worthy.  Some of Manson’s originals like “If I Was Your Vampire” are quite listenable, marrying the woe, doom and gloom of bands like The Cure with a more industrial flavor similar to NIN.

Marilyn Manson’s “Tainted Love” just pisses me off.  That’s my song.  That’s my on my knees, crawling on all fours, leaving the stage to mingle in the crowd karaoke song.  I do it justice.  It’s mine.  They ripped me off with this song.  It loses all its heartsick bitter jaded wonderfulosity in the Manson version. (What’s also terrible, maybe even worse, is H.I.M.’s cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”…but that’s a tangent for another day) I think they need to blow it up, remove it from the universe, give it back to me, pretend it never existed and we’ll call it even.