Name | The High End of Low |
---|---|
Type | studio |
Artist | Marilyn Manson |
Cover | Marilyn Manson - The High End of Low cover.jpg |
Released | May 20, 2009(see release dates below) |
Recorded | March 2008–January 2009 Sage & Sound Recording(Hollywood, California) |
Genre | Alternative rock, alternative metal |
Length | 72:12 |
Label | Interscope |
Producer | Sean Beavan, Marilyn Manson, Chris Vrenna, Jeordie White |
Last album | Eat Me, Drink Me(2007) |
This album | The High End of Low(2009) |
Next album | Marilyn Manson's eighth studio album(2011) |
Misc |
The album was originally scheduled for release in October 2008, although due to touring commitments this date was pushed back to winter 2008, before a slating of May 2009, which turned out correct. Initially, Manson also intended to release a song from the album before the end of 2008, however these plans did not materialize. The album was released on May 25, 2009 in the United Kingdom and May 26, 2009 in the United States. The album's first radio single, "Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon," was released on May 18, 2009. Critical response to the album was mixed, with some reviews criticizing the repetitiveness of the music and lackluster ideas, while others praised a more human Manson following his divorce, and a return to the sound of the well-received Mechanical Animals.
Many themes permeate "The High End of Low", mostly ones of violence like in the songs "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon", "Pretty as a Swastika", "Blank and White", "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies"; pain: "Leave a Scar" and "Unkillable Monster"; politics in "We're from America"; love and other destructive emotions like in the songs "Devour" and "Running to the Edge of the World"; death in "Four Rusted Horses" and "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell"; and self-realization/rebirth: "Into the Fire". The logo for The High End of Low appears to be based on the English logo for The Criterion Collection edition of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa film Tengoku to jigoku, which translates to 'Heaven and Hell', a lyrical theme in "Four Rusted Horses". The album debuted at № 4 on the Billboard 200, falling to № 24 and № 60 in its second and third weeks. The album has sold over 142,000 copies to date in the US.
In December 2007 Tim Skold had departed from the band, due to the return of former bassist Twiggy Ramirez, who re-christened himself "Twiggy", dropping the serial killer surname. The reunion was announced in January 2008. Coincident with the announcement, Manson gave an exclusive interview to the now defunct fansite "The Heirophant", in which he revealed plans to record an album with Twiggy and Vrenna after the Rape of the World Tour ended.
In a February 2008 interview with Steppin' Out, Manson described the new album as, "very ruthless, very heavy, and very violent."
On October 19, 2008, Manson and Twiggy announced at the 2008 Scream Awards after party that the album would "sound more like Antichrist Superstar" and that the recording sessions are "pretty much done." It was also revealed that live guitarist Wes Borland would remain with the band while they toured in support of the record, something which did not materialize. In an interview with Spinner.com released the following day, Manson put forth an explanation of Twiggy's experience working on the album: "This record is the record we always wanted to make and [Twiggy] is writing from a point of view that I've always written from lyrically. I don't think earlier on he had the opportunity to be damaged, and his soul to be trampled on by women as much as me. So now that his penis has been cut off metaphorically, and been smashed into fucking Sloppy Joe's, someone shit on his heart a thousand times, we tried to put a musical face to that." A statement by Manson that the band were considering releasing a song before the end of the year implied that the album was unlikely to be released in winter 2008, contrary to Manson's announcement in May of that year.
In December 2008, Manson revealed the sonic qualities of three tracks. One was said to feature "a coven of witchy girls," the other "acoustic swampiness that harkens back to when [he] was living in New Orleans", and the song Manson plays guitar on also features him "snorting something, whatever it might have been" as a percussive instrument. On March 10, 2009, a blog entry by producer Sean Beavan confirmed two additional titles, "15" and the rumored "Four Rusted Horses".
In a March interview with Kerrang!, Manson revealed that The High End of Low contains 15 songs, "15" being its closing track. He also claimed that the fourteenth track "Into The Fire"" is a "glorious epic" which Twiggy would be most memorable for as a guitarist. Manson also explained that the songs on the album are listed by the order they were written and recorded. He also revealed the title of another song, "We're from America", which was made available for free download through the band's website on March 27, 2009. The same month, five rough mixes of songs from the album were leaked to the Internet. Chris Vrenna has commented on the leaks, explaining that "I hate stealing of music in any form. If a band chooses to put tracks online, that is great. [...] But, downloading unauthorized music is that same as walking into your local CD store and shoplifting the disc! I think true fans know that usually songs found online before the record's release are either rough mixes of tracks and will wait to hear the music in the way the artist intended."
On March 27, 2009, Metal Hammer released a blog describing two songs from The High End of Low, "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon" and the previously unverified track "The Wow" (actually titled "WOW"). Later on April 7, 2009, Metal Hammer confirmed the titles of three new songs, "Blank and White", "Running to the Edge of the World" and "White Spider" (actually titled "Wight Spider"). The report also confirmed the leaked song "maybeharmfulifswallowed" has since been retitled "Leave a Scar".
On April 16, 2009, Marilynmanson.com was updated to include the track listing for The High End of Low, thus revealing three previously unreleased song titles: "Pretty as a Swastika", "Unkillable Monster" and "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell". A splash page was also added to the website, depicting Manson holding a bundle of fluorescent lights against his head.
Many themes permeate "The High End of Low", mostly ones of violence like in the songs "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon", "Pretty as a Swastika", "Blank and White", "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies"; pain: "Leave a Scar" and "Unkillable Monster"; politics in "We're from America"; love and other destructive emotions like in the songs "Devour" and "Running to the Edge of the World"; death in "Four Rusted Horses" and "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell"; and self-realization/rebirth: "Into the Fire". The album is ultimately a closing of previous ideas, morals and the past. Manson has stated the whole album is influenced by film, particularly the track "I Want To Kill You Like They Do In The Movies". The High End of Low runs rampant with references to the number 15, a first since 1998's Mechanical Animals. These references include the album having 15 songs, the last of which is titled "15", the number 15 spanning across the MM logo on the back of the "We're from America" single, the fact there are 15 letters in the album's title, and that The High End of Low would be released roughly 15 years after the band's major label debut, Portrait of an American Family. Noted in an interview, Manson said he has been long obsessed with the number fifteen as it is the number of the devil in the tarot card deck.
The cover art for the album portrayed the face of Manson with red laser lights in his head, standing still looking at the camera next to a red-toned background. The back of the cover features a photo of Manson with a hat, with the track listing featured on the left side. The front cover was shot by Delaney Bishop and the back cover by Mike Riley. The inside photos were shot by Mike Riley and all Polaroids by Manson and Evan Rachel Wood.
The logo for The High End of Low appears to be based on the English logo for The Criterion Edition of the 1963 Akira Kurosawa film Tengoku to jigoku, which translates to 'Heaven and Hell', a lyrical theme in "Four Rusted Horses". As its title would suggest, "Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon" contains numerous parallels to Biblical iconography. These themes, among others, pervade the song and video for the single, exploring the innate fascism of money, censorship and sensationalism of American culture. It is one of the most indicting tracks on the record with the single's video and imagery acting as a prelude to the new era's ethos. The '$' symbol with the video acts additionally as a veiled reference to Salvador Dalí, stemming from a pointed attack formulated on Breton's belief that Dalí had abandoned his artistic integrity and surrealist roots in the pursuit of fame and wealth. Furthermore, (and much like Manson) Dalí was met with accusations of being a Nazi sympathizer who held militaristic and fascist ideologies, due to his unashamed and open fascination with fascism.
The High End of Low is the first studio album by Marilyn Manson since their major label debut, Portrait of an American Family, not to feature a conventional title track. However the song "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell" is essentially the album's title track, as "The High End of Low" is a recurring lyric in the song. Worth noting is the EP Smells Like Children, which also did not have a title track, however the title of this release was lifted from an unrecorded song of the same name.
One of the most enthralling tracks on "The High End of Low" simultaneously serves as one of the most laden with multi-faceted imagery. Prior to the album release it was erroneously referred to as "White Spider"; however, the difference of just a few letters largely sets the tone for the rest of the piece. Fans of fantasy and etymology may already be aware of the significance. A "wight" is an archaic terminology that originally derived from Old English "wiht", and its meaning was a creature or otherwise living thing. Through centuries of poetry and fantasy it managed to acquire its more recognizable meaning, which stands at odds with its original definition. The wight is a form of a supernatural entity, somewhat comparable to that of a wraith-like, ghostly figure. They’re akin to that of a shadowy remnant, ultimately being a poor reflection of their former self. As wights are continually trapped in an existence of nonexistence, it is unsurprising that they were portrayed as aggressive, and violently filled with bile and hatred.
The seventh track from "The High End of Low", entitled "Running to the Edge of the World", contains a lyric which first arose publicly during the lead up to the abandoned Celebritarian era: "I don't seek death, I seek destruction, Until death we seek destruction, We don’t seek death, we seek destruction, Until death we seek destruction". Similarly, the lyric "United as one against all others" is a notable parallel to what is said by Manson and Evan Rachel Wood in the "Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand)" music video before plummeting their vehicle off the side of the cliff. The title of the song itself may be a reference to the 1937 Michael Powell film, The Edge of the World. The twelfth track off of "The High End of Low", "We're From America", opens with the lyrics "We’re from America/We’re from America/Where we eat our young." Apart from the analogy's condemnation of the way children are reared, exploited and ultimately destroyed, it is also a reference to a piece of artwork by Franciso de Goya entitled 'Saturn Devouring His Children'. The painting itself can be seen during the final scene of "The Nobodies" music video. The painting and Manson's usage of it are largely tied to a series of alchemical concepts which played an integral role throughout Holy Wood, and the perpetual evolution of Marilyn Manson. "Unkillable Monster" contains an open reference to a film by Luis Buñuel in the lyrics: "Sometimes I dream I'm an exterminating angel, A travelling executioner from heaven".
"Blank and White" is about censorship and about the day that the New York Times said "God is dead" and that the suffragettes protested. One particular line in the song, "all you fuckers vote beep beep beep" may be a sarcastic political indictment of the "voters" that seek to effect change through such ineffectual and complacent means as holding pickets up along city streets. As Manson mentioned in the same Shockhound interview, the fact that this very line is echoed in the long censoring "beep" replacing "[shoot the] president of whatever" made him quite happy artistically. The second track of the album is called "Pretty as a Swastika". "It's something I said to a girl because of her complexion, with black hair, red lips and pale skin. I mean, it was a complex and poetic comment that soon led to intercourse, so I felt no reason for it to be seen as confusing, hateful and destructive. The record label [told Manson to], take it off the album. Rather than do so, I decided to produce it on the inside of the sleeve with a different name, so it'll be sold in Wal-Mart or wherever stores sell guns but are afraid to deal with lyrics. So, I put "Pretty as a ($)" because all of their motivations are based on money."
On September 10 and 11 Manson posted three photos on his Myspace of stills from the video of "Running To The Edge Of The World". The first two stills were uploaded to his "video stills from the future" photo album. The third was released the next day in his "My Mobile Photos" photo album. On November 4 at 6:19PM EST, the video was uploaded to the official website. It had briefly been up under the title "test1" two days prior, but only for a few hours. The video was directed by Manson and Nathan "Karma" Cox, who also directed the video for "Personal Jesus". It opens with Manson, dressed in a white shirt singing the song to a camera while partially concealing himself with a curtain. As the bridge and outro of the song play, he beats a woman to death, speculated to represent Evan Rachel Wood, played by Kelly Polk.
"Arma-Goddamn-Motherfuckin-Geddon" was the first official single released by Marilyn Manson from the album. It has a remix by the Teddybears. The song was released for download on May 5, 2009, along with the pre-order of The High End of Low.
"Running to the Edge of The World" was the second official single released by Marilyn Manson from the album. An alternate version of the song was included in the album's bonus CD. The song was released for download on November 4, 2009, and a music video was produced for the song. Although not released as a single, "Four Rusted Horses" was featured in the launch trailer and in promos to the 2011 videogame, F.E.A.R. 3.
Promoting The High End of Low was a free download of the song "We're from America". This was followed by the song's reissue as a digital single on April 7, and its limited release as a physical single on April 14. The album's first conventional single, "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon", entered airplay on April 13, and would be released in CD format on May 15 in Germany and on May 18 in the United Kingdom. The song's music video, filmed between April 4 and 5, failed to meet two expected release dates, before premiering on the NME website in censored form, and hours later on the band's official website in uncensored form. Also in promotion of the album, The High End of Low was made available for streaming on Marilyn Manson's MySpace profile before its worldwide release, and on May 28, Hot Topic hosted clips from the album on its website's homepage.
On May 7, 2009, an official minisite for The High End of Low went online. Along with a new promotional photo, the site provides partial lyrics to "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon", links to pre-order both the album and the "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon" CD single, a mailing list and a Facebook application that features lyrics and samples to songs from the album. The order songs also to feature on this application were as follows: beginning May 7, "Devour", "We're from America" and "Arma-goddamn-motherfuckin-geddon"; these were replaced on May 15 by "Four Rusted Horses", "Leave a Scar" and "Pretty as a Swastika"; these were replaced on May 22 by "Into the Fire", "WOW" and "Blank and White"; than, these were replaced on May 29 by "I Want to Kill You Like They Do in the Movies", "Unkillable Monster" and "Running to the Edge of the World"; and finally, these were replaced on June 5 by "I Have to Look Up Just to See Hell", "15" and "Wight Spider", after which the fate of the application is unknown. On May 8, 2009, an e-mail sent through the site's mailing list confirmed that each week leading up to the album's release, a song will be accessible through phones by texting MANSON to 909090, the first of which being "Wight Spider".
Upon the its release, the album met with mixed reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score 58, based on 14 reviews, which indicates "generally mixed or average reviews". Some critics felt it sounded diluted and repetitive while others praised the album for showing "Manson's more human face after his divorce and best material since Mechanical Animals". Allison Stewart from The Washington Post gave the album a positive review, saying that "Manson's divorce from burlesque dancer Dita Von Teese had led to a new musical high." Spin writer Doug Brod gave a positive review and stated that "[w]hile it's still easy to dismiss his shock tactics as puerile and insensitive he hasn't sounded this vital—and tuneful—since Mechanical Animals." The BBC review stated that the new album saw Manson resurrected after the lackluster Eat Me, Drink Me, with credit given to the skilled bass work on the album. The review sums up the album by saying that it "proves there's still a fair dose of blood and bile to pour from his carcass yet. More impressively, at its best it provides a pointed satirical commentary on noughties America." "We're From America" was cited as the strongest track on the new album. Planet Sound gave the album a positive review, citing it as his best work since Mechanical Animals and that Manson has his "preening confidence back. It results in strutting glam and magnificently OTT ballads, with Manson engaged with sounding alien again." Los Angeles Times reviewer Mikael Wood stated that the band even provide a "surprise or two, as in 'Running to the Edge of the World,' a lush acoustic power ballad complete with pretty falsetto vocals." Wood also states that "'High End' makes a deeper impression as a result of Manson’s reunion with longtime guitarist-bassist Twiggy Ramirez; together with producers Sean Beavan and Chris Vrenna, they sculpted a sound both harder-hitting and more finely detailed than on any previous Marilyn Manson record." Rolling Stone reviewer Jody Rosen gave the album a mediocre review, citing the diminished shock value of the album compared to years past. Rosen stated the best parts of the album are in the ballads like the blues-tinged "Four Rusted Horses" for a more endearing depiction of Manson as a melancholy human rather than Antichrist Superstar. Phil Freeman of allmusic criticized the lack of variety in the album with "two or three musical ideas are repeated throughout the disc". He also criticized the lyrics, stating that Manson "[feels] like he's trying to convince himself as much as the audience" and that he is "pretty much advertising that [he's] out of ideas". A review in The Guardian complained of the lack of novelty in the album, which repeated "the usual entry-level shock-rock histrionics".
In the vein of the album themes and imagery revolving around Manson's conception of life as a movie, the live counterpart of "The High End of Low" reflects this theatricality by simulating each song in the live tour as a different "act". Replete with movie stage-sound lights illuminating Manson onstage, the veil of "backstage"/"onstage" has been lifted to portray this cinematic effect; Manson reapplies his makeup front-and-center onstage, stagehands assist with wardrobe changes in full view of the audience, and the final illustration of this concept is that prior to each song's commencement afterwards, a stagehand emerges and signifies that each new act has begun by use of a clapperboard in front of Manson, as if to convey the filmic mantra of "lights, camera, action" and the song begins.
A new theatric stage was revealed within the first European leg of "The High End Of Low Tour". During "Great Big White World" Manson performed within a white lightbox in reflection of the "whited out" Hollywood hollowness and isolation lyricized within the song. The entirety of the song was sung behind the semi-transparent sheet, removed from the audience. "If I Was Your Vampire", which also deals with a similar lovelorn isolation, was alternately performed with this theatrical device on early dates of the tour.
! Country | ! Sales |
United States | 137,000 |
! Country | ! Sales |
Japan | 10,583 |
United Kingdom | 7,746 |
;Production
Category:2009 albums Category:Albums produced by Chris Vrenna Category:Albums produced by Sean Beavan Category:Interscope Records albums Category:Marilyn Manson albums
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