Marilyn Manson

Brian Hugh Warner, known professionally as Marilyn Manson, is an American rock musician. He is the lead singer and the only original member remaining of the same-titled band he founded in 1989. The band members initially created their stage names by combining the first name of an American female sex symbol, Marilyn Monroe, and the last name of a male serial killer, Charles Manson. In the 1990s, the band released the albums Portrait of an American Family (1994), Antichrist Superstar (1996) and Mechanical Animals (1998), which included hit singles such as "The Beautiful People", "Tourniquet", "The Dope Show" and "Rock Is Dead". The band's 2000 album Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is a direct response to mainstream media, who blamed Manson for supposedly influencing the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre. Three of the band's albums have been awarded platinum status and three more went gold, and they have had eight top-ten albums and two number-one albums on the Billboard 200. He has been ranked at No. 44 on the list of the "Top 100 Heavy Metal Vocalists" by Hit Parader and, along with his band, has been nominated for five Grammy Awards.