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Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death)

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 by accusing him of 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 indicting parents, the values and culture of Conservative Christian America and the media alike for the roles they also play in the exaltation and movement into the mainstream of 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).

Manson claimed that "over 200 songs" had been written during this album's production, although none have been released aside from those appearing on the album.

Cultural references

This album alludes several social, political and cultural icons, such as John F. Kennedy, John Lennon, and others who endured infamous, violent deaths and became "martyrs" of American culture. In part, this is a response to the sentiment that the Columbine massacre was an attempt by two disaffected and disillusioned teenagers at 15 minutes of fame. Manson illustrates the irony that the media's vulture-like behavior and coverage turned the incident into a ratings frenzy, giving Klebold and Harris exactly what they wanted. According to him, the media views tragic death as a form of entertainment for public consumption.

Explaining this point in the song "Lamb of God", Manson sings:

If you die when there's no one watching,

Then your ratings drop and you're forgotten.

But if they kill you on the TV,

You're a martyr and a lamb of God.

The Nobodies attempts to explain the probable mindset of the teenaged killers:

We are the nobodies, wanna be somebodies.

When we're dead, they'll know just who we are.

Further criticism by Manson on the public's response to the killings (found within the song) include the stanza:

Some children died the other day;

We fed machines and then we prayed.

Puked up and down in morbid faith;

You should have seen the ratings that day.

Throughout the album Manson also attacks what he sees as the three core preoccupations of conservative American society: "Guns, God and the Government".

In "The Love Song", he criticizes parents by comparing children to bullets, mothers to a gun and fathers to the arm that pulls the trigger.

After the shootings, the media widely reported that listening to Manson's music drove the boys to kill, though in fact they didn't appear to be fans of the band. An interview with him about the Columbine shootings was featured in the Michael Moore documentary Bowling for Columbine. When asked what he would say to the boys if he had the chance to talk to them, Manson replied, "I wouldn't say a single word to them; I'd listen to what they have to say, and that's what no one did."

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 "Omēga" 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". Adam has an interest for Coma Black though. 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 protaganist now with a new name but essentially the same character as Adam: "Omēga" - 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. Omēga, just like Adam, has a love interest for Coma. As a rock star, Omēga 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 Holywood,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

Though critically acclaimed and more popular amongst newer fans, the album was Manson's worst-selling album at the time. After debuting at number 13 on the Billboard 200 chart, it free-fell off the charts in the weeks that followed.

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.

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 (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.P. 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