Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death) is the fourth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on November 11, 2000, by Nothing and Interscope Records. A rock opera concept album, it is the final installment of a triptych that also included Antichrist Superstar (1996), and marked a return to the industrial metal style of the band's earlier work, after the glam rock-influenced production of Mechanical Animals (1998). After its release, the band's eponymous vocalist said that the overarching story within the trilogy is presented in reverse chronological order: Holy Wood, therefore, begins the narrative.
In the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, national news media reported that the perpetrators were wearing the band's T-shirts during the rampage, and had been influenced by their music, both of which were untrue. As their first release after the massacre, the record was Manson's rebuttal to the accusations leveled against him and the group, and was described by the vocalist as a "declaration of war". It was written in the singer's former home in the Hollywood Hills and recorded in several undisclosed locations, including Death Valley and Laurel Canyon. His ambitions for Holy Wood initially included an eponymous film exploring its backstory—a project which has since been abandoned and was modified into the as-yet-unreleased Holy Wood novel.
The album was released to generally positive reviews. Several writers praised it as the band's finest work, and multiple publications ranked it as one of the best albums of 2000. British rock magazine Kerrang! went on to include it on its list of the best albums of the decade. In the US, Holy Wood was not as commercially successful as the band's preceding records, debuting at number 13 on the Billboard 200. However, it became their most successful album internationally, debuting in the top twenty of numerous national charts. It was certified gold in several countries, including Canada, Japan, Switzerland and the UK.
Three singles were released from the record: "Disposable Teens", "The Fight Song" and "The Nobodies", and the band embarked on the worldwide Guns, God and Government Tour. In 2010, Kerrang! published a 10th-anniversary commemorative piece in which they called the album "Manson's finest hour ... A decade on, there has still not been as eloquent and savage a musical attack on the media and mainstream culture ... [It is] still scathingly relevant [and] a credit to a man who refused to sit and take it, but instead come out swinging."
Background and development
In the late 1990s, Marilyn Manson and his eponymous band established themselves as a household name, and as one of the most controversial rock acts in music history. Their albums Antichrist Superstar (1996) and Mechanical Animals (1998) were both critical and commercial successes, and by the time of their Rock Is Dead Tour in 1999, the frontman had become a culture war iconoclast and a rallying icon for alienated youth. As their popularity increased, the confrontational nature of the group's music and imagery outraged social conservatives. Numerous politicians lobbied to have their performances banned, citing false and exaggerated claims that they contained animal sacrifices, bestiality and rape. Their concerts were routinely picketed by religious advocates and parent groups, who asserted that their music had a corrupting influence on youth culture by inciting "rape, murder, blasphemy and suicide".
On April 20, 1999, Columbine High School students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot dead 13 students and a teacher and wounded 21 others, before committing suicide. In the aftermath of the school shooting, the band were widely reported to have influenced the killings; early media reports alleged that the shooters were fans, and were wearing the group's T-shirts during the massacre. Although these claims were later proven to be false, speculation in national media and among the public continued to blame Manson's music and imagery for inciting Harris and Klebold. Later reports revealed that the two were not fans—and, on the contrary, had disliked the band's music. Despite this, Marilyn Manson (as well as other bands and forms of entertainment, such as movies and video games) were widely criticized by religious, political, and entertainment-industry figures.
Under mounting pressure in the days after Columbine, the group postponed their last five North American tour dates out of respect for the victims and their families. On April 29, ten US senators (led by Sam Brownback of Kansas) sent a letter to Edgar Bronfman Jr. – the president of Seagram (the owner of Interscope) – requesting a voluntary halt to his company's distribution to children of "music that glorifies violence". The letter named Marilyn Manson for producing songs which "eerily reflect" the actions of Harris and Klebold. Later that day, the band cancelled their remaining North American shows. Two days later, Manson published his response to these accusations in an op-ed piece for Rolling Stone, titled "Columbine: Whose Fault Is It?", where he castigated America's gun culture, the political influence of the National Rifle Association of America, and the media's irresponsible coverage, which he said facilitated the placing of blame on a scapegoat, instead of debating more relevant societal issues.
On May 4, a hearing on the marketing and distribution of violent content to minors by the television, music, film and video-game industries was held by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The committee heard testimony from former Secretary of Education (and co-founder of conservative violent entertainment watchdog group Empower America) William Bennett, the Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, professors and mental-health professionals. Speakers criticized the band, its label-mate Nine Inch Nails, and the 1999 film The Matrix for their alleged contribution to a cultural environment enabling violence such as the Columbine shootings. The committee requested that the Federal Trade Commission and the United States Department of Justice investigate the entertainment industry's marketing practices to minors.
After concluding the European and Japanese legs of their tour on August 8, the band withdrew from public view. The early development of Holy Wood coincided with Manson's three-month seclusion at his home in the Hollywood Hills, during which he considered how to respond to the controversy. Manson said the maelstrom made him re-evaluate his career: "There was a bit of trepidation, [in] deciding: 'Is it worth it? Are people understanding what I'm trying to say? Am I even gonna be allowed to say it?' Because I definitely had every single door shut in my face ... there were not a lot of people who stood behind me." He told Alternative Press that he felt his safety was threatened to the point that he "could be shot Mark David Chapman-style." He began work on the album as a counterattack.
Recording and production Several of the tracks that appear on Holy Wood date back to 1995, prior to the release of Antichrist Superstar, although much of this material consisted of "scattered ideas". Manson, the band's vocalist, developed this material into more substantial compositions during his three-month period of seclusion. Following this, the full band worked for a year on re-writing and developing the material. The record is the group's most collaborative effort to date; all members contributed to the songwriting process. Most of the compositional work was done by Manson alongside guitarists Twiggy Ramirez and John 5. The vocalist contrasted his songwriting sessions between the two, calling sessions with the latter "very focused", saying that most of their compositions would be completed before being taken to the rest of the band for consideration. In contrast, his sessions with Ramirez were less demanding, and the pair frequently experimented with absinthe. Drummer Ginger Fish worked constantly on new material, and is credited with performing keyboards and programming, while keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy provided input on "President Dead" and "Cruci-Fiction in Space". Altogether, the band wrote 100 musical fragments, of which between 25 and 30 became songs.
Band members maintained a low profile during the album's recording. Manson indicated that their website would be their "only contact with humanity" during this period. The album was recorded at several locations, including Death Valley, Manson's home in the Hollywood Hills, and Rick Rubin's Mansion Studio in Laurel Canyon. Locations were chosen for the atmosphere they were intended to impart to the music, and the band visited Death Valley a number of times to "imprint the feeling of the desert into [their] minds", and to avoid composing artificial-sounding songs. Manson co-produced the album alongside mixing engineer Dave Sardy, while Bon Harris of electronic body music group Nitzer Ebb is credited with programming and pre-production editing. Experimental sound effects and acoustic songs were recorded using live instrumentation. Harris' programming skills would prove invaluable during the recording process, as he would take the natural sounds the band had been recording and reconstruct them into processed background effects. Manson also explained that the acoustic songs were "acoustic" in the sense that they were not recorded with electronic instruments, but he said the album's sonic landscape would be "intrinsically electronic".
Manson announced on December 16, 1999, that the album was progressing under the working title In the Shadow of the Valley of Death, and that its logo would be the alchemical symbol for mercury. Expanding on the symbol's relationship to the album's concept, Manson said "It represents both the androgyne and the prima materia, which has been associated with Adam, the first man." The band spent considerable time at the Mansion Studio, where the bulk of Ginger Fish's live drumming would be recorded, with its cavernous rooms particularly suitable for recording percussion. On February 23, 2000, Manson delivered a 20-minute lecture via satellite to a current-events convention, "DisinfoCon 2000", aimed at exposing disinformation wherein he posed the question, "White teenagers, why are they mad? They're white. They're spoiled. Is it because they know that America's a lie? ... Is adult entertainment killing our children? Or is killing our children entertaining adults?" Six days later, it was announced that their upcoming album had been re-titled Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death). By April, the album was in the final stages of recording, and Manson began posting footage of the band from the studio.
Novel and film
Manson's ambitions for the project initially included an eponymous film exploring the album's backstory. In July 1999, he had reportedly begun negotiating with New Line Cinema to produce and distribute the film and its soundtrack. At the 1999 MTV Europe Music Awards in Dublin (where the band performed on November 11), he disclosed the film's title and his production plans. Manson met Chilean avant-garde filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky at the event to discuss work on the film, although no final decision was made. By February 29, 2000, the deal fell through when Manson had reservations that New Line Cinema would take the film in a direction which would not have "retained his artistic vision".