thevoid99's Full Review: Holy Wood: In the Shadow of the Valley of Death by...
When Marilyn Manson arrived to the music world, he brought back the old-school shock rock antics of Alice Cooper back to the mainstream in the 1990s with a new edge. In 1996, Manson’s second album “Antichrist Superstar” became a monster hit and he became established as a rock superstar. Like many superstars before him, controversy was always near as some people accuse him of being a Satanist or just being evil. He used controversy to sell his records but always put a message behind the controversy, which is what made him such a powerful force. In 1998, Manson’s star grew bigger as he released a book and a new album “Mechanical Animals” in which he came with a new look from dark, Goth rocker to a glam rocker. Though “Mechanical Animals” was a successful album, it did however alienate some of his Goth fans that enjoyed “Antichrist Superstar”. By 1999, Manson was at the top of his game but trouble laid ahead for him that year.
1999 started off badly after a failed tour stint with the band Hole who left the tour after eight dates and a feud between Manson and Hole singer Courtney Love ensued. As Manson toured by himself throughout the spring of ’99, one of the worst incidents in American history ensued when two students at a high school in Littleton, Colorado shot and killed numerous students and later turning the gun on themselves. The incident known, as Columbine was a tragedy many Americans were shocked by and many wondered whom to blame for the incident. As many tried to find out how this happen, the media noticed that the Columbine killers were fans of Marilyn Manson and Manson was becoming a huge target with conservative groups and the media who they felt was the reason Columbine happened. The media scrutiny made Manson cancel his tour and for three months, he became a recluse in his home in Los Angeles. The backlash grew worse as many Manson fans learned about the fallout between he and mentor Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails and many felt that Manson betrayed the person who made him a superstar.
For the rest of the year 2000, Manson stayed away from the spotlight until May when he appeared at a Nine Inch Nails concert in New York City as a guest which helped resolved the relationship between Reznor and himself by making a video for the NIN song “Starf*ckers, Inc.” which was rumored to be about Manson but it was also about celebrity, Reznor, and enemies such as Courtney Love and Limp Bizkit’s Fred Durst. For the rest of the year, Manson worked on a concept titled “Holywood (In The Shadow of the Valley of Death)”. “Holywood” was a project that wasn’t just going to be an album; Manson had planned to make the project into a book and a movie. The story of “Holywood” tackled issues like censorship, violence, Columbine, JFK, religion, and celebrity all rolled into one. While Manson was completing the album, his plans to make the “Holywood” concept into a film and book never got off ground. By November of 2000, Manson released “Holywood” and instead of being the ambitious project it was supposed to be, the album is really Manson’s struggle as an artist and holding on to his superstar status.
Like a book, “Holywood” has a chapter to a story. There are four chapters in “Holywood” in which they’re brought together by the name “Adam”. The letters of the name “Adam” are separated into four parts. Like a book, there’s a story behind the book but Manson’s story for “Holywood” seems somewhat incoherent and some of the songs on the album aren’t very good. For someone like myself who’s been a fan since 1994, could tell that this album is a struggle between artistic integrity and public acceptance and that struggle is shown pretty well in this album. While he wants to maintain his integrity as an artist, he’s having a hard time trying to get his message to the public and that is the biggest problem w/ this album, his struggle as an artist and public figure.
A. In The Shadow
The first song off of “Holywood” is a dark, brooding song “Godeatgod” about the Kennedy assassination and its affect on American society which started off with a sound of a gun trigger being pulled which segues into a dark and ethereal guitar tracks performed by Manson guitarist John 5, bassist Twiggy Ramirez, and producer Dave Sardy and a dark, ambient keyboard sound from session musician Bon Harris and Manson keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy (Pogo) who provided the ambient atmosphere into the song. “The Love Song” is an ironic track about love but for guns, government, and God, which features powerful drums from Ginger Fish, guitars from John 5, and powerful vocals from Manson himself. “The Fight Song” is a powerful hard rock track that features powerful drums and guitar, which talks about the conflict between groups of people that fit in and groups of people that don’t fit in. “Disposable Teens” is another hard rocking track where Manson takes shots at society, religious groups, and parents for blaming things on what happened at Columbine when really the blame is on them.
D. The Androgyne
“Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis)” is another Kennedy-related track that is dominated by Pogo’s keyboard sounds and John 5’s melodic guitar approach to the song. “”President Dead”” is another hard rocking track about Kennedy and the violence that surrounded his death that included brooding bass hooks from Ramirez and scratchy guitar from John 5. “In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death” is an acoustic, ethereal track filled with atmospheric soundscapes of ambient keyboards from Pogo and distorted flute performance from Manson on this song about death. “Cruci-fiction In Space” is another hard rocking track with loud synthesizers, guitars, and drums about the evolution of man that isn’t very impressive due to its flat sounds of guitars and drums and its murky production. “A Place In The Dirt” is a great song that features Pink Floyd-like synthesizers and powerful guitars about the world and the evilness that surrounds it.
A. Of Red Earth
“The Nobodies” is a harpsichord-driven song about the people that didn’t fit in the world, especially in high school where there’s the popular kids and the unpopular crowd. The song features brooding keyboards from Pogo, crunch-driven guitars from John 5, and powerful drums from Ginger Fish. “The Death Song” is another powerful hard rock track that is highlighted by powerful drum tracks, rocking guitars, and a weird choir of children and laughing dead people from Pogo on a song about death. “The Lamb Of God” is an electronic, acoustic track that is mucked badly by its production and slow pace on a song about the evilness on the world concerning Jesus Christ and Columbine. “Born Again” is a really powerful track with its Beatles-like drum track that is a little reminiscent of “Tomorrow Never Knows” from “Revolver” and featured powerful guitars, bass, and synth tracks on this hard rocking song about a new person coming into the world who doesn’t fit in. “Burning Flag” is another hard-rocking track that is ruined by electronic drum tracks and over-the-top guitar tracks that dominated too much of the song which doesn’t have a clear message on what its about.
M. The Fallen
“Coma Black” is a sequel of sorts to the song “Coma White” off of “Mechanical Animals” that is separated into two parts. Part one is “eden eye” that is a pretty boring track due to its predictable guitar and drum tracks and its incoherent lyrics on love which later segues into the second part of the song “the apple of discord” sounds like the previous part but with falsetto vocals from Manson and bass synth from Pogo that doesn’t make this track even better. “Valentine’s Day” is another hard-rock driven track that doesn’t have a clear subject and the rest of the album, lyrically, at this point doesn’t get any clearer. “The Fall Of Adam” is an acoustic track backed by atmospheric wind sounds and it falls flat due to its murky lyrics. “King Kill 33o” is a distorted industrial rock track with distorted vocals from Manson, weird synthesizers from Pogo, repeated drum tracks from Fish, and the distortion is way overdone by the production and instrumental tracks in the song. The album’s closer “Count To Six And Die” starts and ends with that gun trigger sound that started the album backed by piano and synthesizer tracks while Manson sings about another unclear subject in the song, which makes this whole story unclear at the end.
Marilyn Manson’s “Holywood” is a good but a real self-indulgent album from the shock rocker. Manson said this album is the first part of a trilogy gone backwards with his previous efforts “Mechanical Animals” and “Antichrist Superstar” but there’s no centerpiece to the whole thing. Though he was trying to make an album about what caused Columbine to happen, his message is pretty unclear and really, “Holywood” is nothing more than a self-indulgent effort which I think was the reason why it didn’t sell very well and at the same time suffered both critically and commercially. With this record fading from the world, many would wonder what Manson would do next and it looks like he has an unclear future after this album. In the meantime, don’t buy “Holywood” because of Columbine; don’t buy it because it’s not a very good record from Manson.
Written in the house where the Rolling Stones lived during the making of Let It Bleed, and recorded at the home of the late magician Harry Houdini, Ho...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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