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Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)
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Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is the fourth full-length album by rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on November 14, 2000 by Interscope Records. It is a concept album, and the third and final album of a trilogy along with Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. It spawned three singles ("Disposable Teens", "The Fight Song" and "The Nobodies") and a novel which remains currently unreleased.
Holy Wood was Marilyn Manson's first album since the Columbine High School massacre (20 April 1999), for which some media outlets, pundits and politicians had made him scapegoat through accusations of him fostering and encouraging the perpetrators' violent state of mind via his music and "goth" imagery.
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Encyclopedia
Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is the fourth full-length album by rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on November 14, 2000 by Interscope Records. It is a concept album, and the third and final album of a trilogy along with Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals. It spawned three singles ("Disposable Teens", "The Fight Song" and "The Nobodies") and a novel which remains currently unreleased.
Holy Wood was Marilyn Manson's first album since the Columbine High School massacre (20 April 1999), for which some media outlets, pundits and politicians had made him scapegoat through accusations of him fostering and encouraging the perpetrators' violent state of mind via his music and "goth" imagery. Consequently, much of the album's content addresses the issue and poses several counterarguments investigating the roles parents, the values and culture of Conservative Christian America and the media alike also play in the exaltation and acceptance into the "mainstream" of wholesale violence. The record supplants this by underlining American society's obsession with guns, religion and fame - esp. fame that has historically been attained by people whose deaths have been publicly displayed and romanticized in the media (televised or print) and consequently painted as "martyrs" within the national or public consciousness (e.g., President John F. Kennedy also, by extension, Jesus Christ).
Concept
Holy Wood is a prequel to the albums Mechanical Animals and Antichrist Superstar. The main character in the over-arching storyline is Adam Kadmon who was previously manifested by Manson as the androgynous alien/rockstar "Omega" in Mechanical Animals and "The Worm / Antichrist Superstar" on Antichrist Superstar.
Interestingly, the tragic and ill-fated character Coma White is paralleled on this album by "Coma Black".
Holy Wood follows Adam Kadmon, a rebel from the Valley of Death, which is essentially a dwelling of "rejects", who leads a revolution against Holy Wood, which is populated by the rich and famous; who are the same as "The Beautiful People". His revolution is a bittersweet success in that while he does eradicate Holy Wood, the mainstream media soon transforms the revolution and makes it just as fake, profiteering, and hollow as Holy Wood. All of this leads to Adam's assumed suicide and the start of the Mechanical Animal's storyline.
Mechanical Animals then follows the journey, the protagonist now with a new name but essentially the same character as Adam: "Omega" - a decadent and sexually ambiguous androgynous alien who, much like David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust, falls down to earth, is captured and then turned into a rock star product. Another lesser character on the album is Alpha who is more Manson like. Omega, just like Adam, has a love interest for Coma. As a rock star, Omega becomes increasingly addicted to drugs, emotionally dissociated and nihilistic. All the while his relationship with Coma grows more dysfunctional and falls into disrepair. Just as in Holy Wood, he snaps.
Finally the Antichrist Superstar storyline begins. It follows one main character and the two stages of his life; The Worm and The Disintegrator. The Worm is likened to "an insignificant shadow looking for his place in an infinite world of light." In his journey, he becomes a fascistic, repressive tyrant, the eponymous "Antichrist Superstar", known alternatively as "The Disintegrator", who in his vitriol, betrays everything the revolution fought for and along the way destroys everyone and everything around him.
Reception
Holy Wood received positive reviews from critics. Rolling Stone said: "The band truly rocks: Its malevolent groove fleshes out its leader's usual complaints with an exhilarating swagger that's the essence of rock & roll." Allmusic said it since is the band best album: "There's so much effort, Holy Wood winds up a stronger and more consistent album than any of his other work."
It debuted at #13 on the Billboard 200 and has since being certified Gold. And since it was certified gold the album is the most succesful album by marilyn manson so far selling over 9 million copies worldwide.
Book and film
The album was meant to be accompanied by a book and a movie of the same name which further delves into the concept
album's backstory. The book has yet to be released, allegedly due to a publishing dispute, and the movie never began production. While interviewing Manson around the time of the release of the book Stranger Than Fiction, Chuck Palahniuk mentions the book—saying it is complete—and compliments its style.
Manson released chapter 10 of the book. Many fans noticed the prevalence of misspellings and errors in grammar (either intentional or otherwise).
See Holy Wood (book).
Trivia
- "GodEatGod", the album's opening track, is a spoonerism of the phrase "dog eat dog".
- "The Love Song" critiques American society's obsession with Christianity, fire arms and patriotism.
- "The Fight Song" was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche.
- "The Fight Song" has lyrics that state, "The death of one is a tragedy, but the death of a million is just a statistic". This is a quote often attributed to the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
- The phrase "a rebel from the waist down" from "Disposable Teens" is taken from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. It is also an allusion to Elvis Presley's controversial and infamous sexually-charged pelvic-swinging (notoriously, Elvis was shot only from the waist up in the Ed Sullivan Show to appease conservative viewers), comparing his situation with the controversy and censorship Elvis attracted with the conservative audience of the time.
- "Disposable Teens" was the first single released from Holy Wood. Marilyn Manson is said to have merely rehashed his hit "The Beautiful People" with the severe Teutonic and militaristic staccato of this track.
- "Target Audience" is a pun used to mock the media's sole interest in ratings and the duality of usage of "targets" (Columbine shootings).
- "The term "Holy Wood" was once used in a poem by Aleister Crowley, to whom Marilyn Manson frequently refers. It is also used as a mockery of Hollywood, as per the imagery in the album's cover art.
- On the US 'God, Guns and Government' tour of 2000, Christian lobby groups petitioned for the banning of Manson performing 'The Nobodies' due to its references to events surrounding the Colorado shootings.
- The first letters of each of the album's sections spell out "ADAM", the name of the main character in the album's story arc.
- The song "Born Again" was allegedly recorded live on 14 February 1997, the same day as "Irresponsible Hate Anthem".
- The title of the album and song references Psalm 23 from the Bible.
- "Cruci-Fiction in Space" is used in the television commercial for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 game The Darkness
- The song "President Dead" is exactly 3 minutes and 13 seconds. Frame 313 of the Abraham Zapruder film of President JFK's assassination is the frame when Kennedy's head explodes.
- "The Nobodies" starts with the use of a Roland TR-909 drum machine.
- At the very beginning of the song "King Kill 33°", Manson whispers: "Blame me." This is in reference to Columbine.
Track listing
Hidden video track
Autopsy is a short bonus easter egg included on the album as a hidden format. The video was hosted at Interscope's website (no longer available), and was accessed from the CD by running START.exe.
The video features Manson on an autopsy table having his head opened from which a fetus is extracted. This could be reference to the birth of the Greek goddess Athena, who had been the result of a tryst that Zeus had with Metis, and out of fear of her conceiving children more powerful than he, swallowed her. But he was too late, for Metis had already conceived Athena within him.
Or, in another sense, along with all the album's themes of emotionally neglected children, could be the child theoretically hiding within himself.
This video was also included as a secret track on the companion DVD to Lest We Forget. It is accessible by pressing the Left directional button on the "special features" menu.
Credits
- Marilyn Manson - Arranger, Vocals, Producer, Art Direction, Concept, Syncussion, Optigan, Mellotron, "Distorted Flute", Synth Bass, Keyboards, Piano, Pianette, Ambiance, Electric Harpsichord, Rhythm Guitar
- Twiggy Ramirez - Bass, Guitar (Rhythm, Lead, Leslie, Warped), Keyboards
- John 5 - Guitar (Lead, Rhythm, Acoustic, Synth, Electric, Slide, Phase)
- Madonna Wayne Gacy - Synths, Ambiance, Keyboards, Samples, Bass Synth, Synth Strings, Mellotron, "Children's Choir and canned laughter of dead people unsure of why they are laughing"
- Ginger Fish - Drums (Live, Drum Machine), Death & Siren Loops, Keyboards
- Bon Harris - Synthesizers, Programming, Pre-Production Editing, Organic Drum Programming, Bass, Keyboard, "Insect Hi-Hat", Sleigh Bells, (Destructive) Manipulation, Electronics, Piano
- Paulie Northfield - Additional Engineering
- D. Sardy (Dave Sardy) - Producer, Synths, (Organic) Drum Programming, Mixing, Noise Rhythm Guitar, "Pills"
- P.R. Brown - Art Direction, Design, Photography
- Greg Fidelman - Engineer, All Pro-Tools
- Nick Raskulinecz - Assistant Engineer
- Joe Zook - Assistant Engineer
- Kevin Guarnieri - Assistant Engineer
- Danny Saber - Additional loops
- Alex Suttle - Backing Vocals
Charting positions
Album
Singles
External links
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