Actor Matthew Perry recently died from an overdose of ketamine, an ever-more-popular drug that can make a person feel separated from his body. Much legislation is being enacted to fight the epidemic of fentanyl, a cheap chemical that kills pain and releases tension. As soon as we're are old enough to hold a phone, we turn away from one another and lock on to a screen.
Addiction is now the universal human condition -- an understandable escape, given that the world, other people and especially our own reflections are all too horrifying to confront. So it's instructive to hear two experts on the subject of addiction, former Ozzfest stagemates Marilyn Manson and Ozzy Osbourne, emerging with new songs on the subject from different perspectives.
As usual, Manson is the more complicated case. His career damaged by multiple lawsuits alleging abuse of women -- nearly all of which have foundered -- he has nevertheless resumed touring and issued two new singles that belch hot spite. He's singing with artful power, riding a well-lubricated rock machine through humid tropics alongside longtime collaborator Tyler Bates. And his reported sobriety lends credibility to the message of "As Sick As the Secrets Within."
The title, hooked to A.A. jargon, also implies a challenge: You call me sick? I have no secrets; everyone knows I'm an addict and a transgressor. The sick ones are the hypocrites who never face their own sins.
Self-serving? Yes. Untrue? Ask your confessor.
The song's narrative spotlights Manson plagued by the constant call of the addiction beast. "A reason for me/For me to get by/Became a need/A need to get high/Then into a life that was no life at all." A stark admission, new to Manson. And he has pulled someone else into his cage. What the two share with Matt Perry and the rest of us is a desire to "get out of your skin." In the typically surreal video (directed by regular lensman Bill Yukich), Manson takes the role of a praying penitent, squirming and confined but escaping through his art. At the end, he wakes from a nightmare to new composure. Maybe he was dreaming of the addiction beast, who also represents himself -- the video's logo is Manson holding up a broken mirror to his own face.
This kind of layered depth is why we can't discard Manson: It would be throwing away Rosemary's baby with the bathwater. And for good and ill, he is we.
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Billy Idol guitarist Billy Morrison's new "The Morrison Project" features a lot of guest artists, including Ozzy Osbourne and Idol bassist Steve Stevens on "Crack Cocaine." (Coincidentally, the record also prominently features former Manson teammates Twiggy Ramirez and John 5.)
Ozzy's recent years recording and touring once again with Black Sabbath must have fogged his spectacles with nostalgia over how much he enjoyed being in a BAND, and the inclusion of Sab touring drummer Tommy Clufetos in the Morrison package must have made him feel as if he were wailing the blues with his local pub combo. Because that's what this rambling, rocking tune sounds like.
Just as important, Ozzy had a substantial hand in the song's lyrics, which tattoo a message close to his heart: A lifelong addict is likely to swap one dependency for another. "You just control me." "I can't live with or without you." "I put you down and pick you up again." "I'm running out of cash." We hardly know whom to pity more -- the addict or the human lover we all know, his replacement drug. Still, we hope each gains something from the transaction, since they're risking, as the video suggests, an ultimate ticket to Rats' Alley.
"Crack Cocaine"? Sure, the '80s dope terminology dates Ozzy and Morrison. Nobody expects them to write songs about fentanyl, though. The two words sound good together, and so do they.