{"id":5135,"date":"2000-11-13T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2000-11-13T00:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/?p=5135"},"modified":"2013-06-01T15:07:45","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T15:07:45","slug":"album-review-marilyn-manson-holy-wood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/album-review-marilyn-manson-holy-wood\/","title":{"rendered":"MARILYN MANSON – Holy Wood (2000) | Album \/ EP Reviews @ Metal Forces Magazine"},"content":{"rendered":"

MARILYN MANSON
Holy Wood<\/strong><\/span>
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\nInterscope (2000)<\/span>
Rating: 10\/10<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

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After the Columbine massacre in April of 1999, reports surfaced that the murderers were Marilyn Manson<\/a> fans. While Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were certainly influenced by mass entertainment and our dysfunctional culture, the teenagers didn\u2019t care for the band\u2019s music. Nonetheless, Manson was partially blamed for the shootings, with the media looking for any scapegoat possible.<\/p>\n

Marilyn Manson took the scrutiny to heart. Feeling the pressure and blame of the shootings, he locked himself into his house for three months and wrote arguably the greatest concept album of the decade. The third installment in a reverse trilogy of records – which also includes Antichrist Superstar<\/em><\/a> (October 1996) and Mechanical Animals<\/em><\/a> (September 1998) \u2013 the character Adam is presented as a hedonistic celebrity that promotes violence, martyrdom, and hero worship. In other words, he was the embodiment of the Columbine killers, and even Manson himself. And if Antichrist Superstar<\/em> is the black sheep and Mechanical Animals<\/em> is the red-headed stepchild, then Holy Wood (In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death)<\/em> is the big, protective brother to both.<\/p>\n

Not only did Manson respond to accusations of his music being the blame for the tragedy, but he also made this album an open commentary on what\u2019s wrong with the world at large. The focus is on the lyrics; you\u2019re drawn to them. Such maturity took place over the first six years of his career that Manson actually seemed concerned. Concerned not only for himself, but also for 1,000s of misfits that are ignored by others. His thought was if these outsiders continue to be ignored, who knows what could happen? Entertainment was not the culprit, he contended; the media, society as a whole, and parents are to blame: \u201cI wanna thank you mom \/ I wanna thank you dad \/ for bringing this fucking world to a bitter end\u201d<\/em> (from the album\u2019s first single \u2018Disposable Teens\u2019). \u201cI\u2019m sorry you never check the bag in my head for a bomb\u201d<\/em>, he says with guns pointed straight at the parents on \u2018Target Audience (Narcissus Narcosis)\u2019. These are no-holds barred lyrics. And, dare to be said, he\u2019s onto something. It portrays the psyche of a sociopath. It becomes the soundtrack for the atrocities of Columbine.<\/p>\n

Co-producer Dave Sardy and programmer Bon Harris (Nitzer Ebb) hone in on key sounds to make this arguably Manson\u2019s finest hour. And, along for the ride on his first studio album with the band, John 5 (David Lee Roth Band, Rob Halford\u2019s Two, Rob Zombie) made huge contributions with writing credits on 15 of the 19 tracks. His crunchy, straightforward guitar on \u2018Cruci-Fiction in Space\u2019 makes it the most simplistic but heaviest track on the record. Of course, Twiggy Ramirez also gives his riff-heavy input to the proceedings, though not as much as on past albums.<\/p>\n

With the odds stacked against them, Marilyn Manson returned with a powerful album. Holy Wood<\/em> is full of social incite that made even the most conservative Christians take note and think. Striving to convince us it\u2019s not his fault in one of the band\u2019s most haunting songs to date, \u2018The Nobodies\u2019, Manson holds fast to the thoughts of the Columbine killers: \u201cWe are the nobodies \/ We wanna be somebodies \/ When we\u2019re dead \/ They\u2019ll know just who we are\u201d<\/em>. Or are those Manson\u2019s thoughts on his own life?<\/p>\n

Chad Olson<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MARILYN MANSONHoly Wood Interscope (2000)Rating: 10\/10 After the Columbine massacre in April of 1999, reports surfaced that the murderers were Marilyn Manson fans. While Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were certainly influenced by mass entertainment and our dysfunctional culture, the teenagers didn\u2019t care for the band\u2019s music. Nonetheless, Manson was partially blamed for the shootings, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[256],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marilyn-manson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12143,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5135\/revisions\/12143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.metalforcesmagazine.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}