MTV News: Some people have tried to make the case that this has been the year in which darker music, with yours is a notable exception perhaps, has been on the way out.

Manson: I think maybe because, in their hearts, people are feeling very depressed, feeling very, maybe, disgusted with the world or with themselves. I chose to express it in an album ["Beautiful People" 1MB QuickTime Live] as did a lot of other people, and maybe some people don't want to express it, so they have to dilute themselves with pop music, happy rock stuff. Maybe it's just an excuse. I always thought that happiness was a psychological problem. Anybody who is truly happy needs to see a doctor. There's something wrong with them.

MTV News: Speaking of happiness, have you enjoyed watching Hanson's meteoric rise?

Manson: Well, Hanson, I think, is an exception because I think they're the tools of the devil. I think there's some devious person pulling their strings. I'm very scared of those boys. I think that in a year from now they will have created more acts of depravity and have lived up to the more infamous. They are going to be right up there with Danny Bonaduce and Leif Garrett and myself, I think, just in a matter of six to seven months. I look forward to seeing them there.

MTV News: What did this year mean to Jamiroquai?

JAY KAY: I think it was going to be a good year for us anyway because we had the album that was going to, I think, elevate us above the position that we were before. The position that we were before, I think, was a band who was working really hard and not really achieving the record sales that perhaps the record company would have liked us to. I think they were happy enough, but I felt that we had to make a jump.

Three events stick out in my mind. One was singing with Diana Ross, which was great. The other was winning the MTV Best Video Award ["Virtual Insanity 500k QuickTime Live], which was fantastic, and it was actually something that I felt that we deserved, especially against the contenders in the category. And the other bit was meeting Stevie Wonder, because that's something, you know. When you've been into somebody for a long time and for seven years you've been making music and his name has cropped up for those seven years and you've never even met the fellow or even spoken to him and then to speak to him and then for him to hum you all a little cheer and stuff, it's like quite nice. So that was definitely one of the main events for me.

MTV News: Did you get a chance to listen to Hanson in 1997?

Jay Kay: Ah, nice bunch of lads, totally different class, you see what I mean? Guys can sing. They can play. Good songs. They can all sing... got personality. They're brilliant, you know. I'd give it to them every time, you know? Well done. Brilliant. They deserve it. As Marilyn Manson, God forget Marilyn Manson, let's go get Hanson, yeah wow! Way to go Marilyn, ah yes, satanic verse.

MTV News: How would you characterize 1997?

FIONA APPLE: Probably the year that the whole fishbowl world took responsibility for itself. I think that what Madonna said at the [MTV] Awards was really the sum total of the realization that I think a lot of the people came to just by how crazy it's gotten, and it's sad. It's gotten just so crazy that people are so obsessed with what this other class of human beings that are celebrities are doing.

The way I see it is, if everybody went with theirselves [VMAs 500k QuickTime Live] then it wouldn't be so interesting. Yunno', it was sick. They ran and took pictures of her when she's dead in a car. They wouldn't have run there if they didn't know they were going to get paid a lot of money because a lot of people would want to see them. And actually, in reality, a lot of people didn't really want to see that but the assumption was that it was Princess Di and no matter what she's doing and if we get a picture of her then it'll sell and that's what's really sad. I mean, not about Princess Di, because Princess Di was a celebrity because of one reason, but she turned it into her own celebrity by dedicating every bit of power that she attained by being a celebrity to other people. So it was something really precious to this world that what we lost and that's what took. It took for us to realize how crazy it's getting. So hopefully that's what it's about. Hopefully it's about a reality check. I think that's really what this whole year has been about.