♫ Say, all you pin-down girls and bonafied ballers, so manically depressed and manically dressed. We got our "Venus Not in Furs" but "In Uniforms"; if you're not dancing, then you're dead. Doll-dagga buzz-buzz ziggety-zag, god-mod grotesque-burlesque drag. ♫
The Golden Age of Grotesque era was the band's journey with experimentation into new sounds (electronic/industrial rock) after longtime bassist Twiggy Ramirez had left the band and was replaced with Tim Skold. The album contained imagery from the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, the Swing Era of the 1930s, burlesque, and Vaudeville, and dealt with the themes of commercial success in music (selling out), sex and "degenerate" art. Lyrically, the album was composed less of metaphors and did not tell a specific story; rather, it contained a large amount of wordplay and multiple allusions to early twentieth-century film, literature, entertainment, and overall culture. References include Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Adolf Hitler and Oscar Wilde. Manson had collaborated with artist Gottfried Helnwein for most of the visual aspects of the era and drew heavily from Mel Gordon's 2000 academic book Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Toward the end of the era, the last touring legs and their imagery shifted into an elegant Victorian style, bringing back the themes of Celebritarianism last seen in the Holy Wood era. Manson had now been experiencing depression, largely due to marital problems with his then-wife Dita Von Teese and began focusing on his career in watercolour painting, rather than music.
The Golden Age of Grotesque era was the band's journey with experimentation into new sounds (electronic/industrial rock) after longtime bassist Twiggy Ramirez had left the band and was replaced with Tim Skold. The album contained imagery from the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany, the Swing Era of the 1930s, burlesque, and Vaudeville, and dealt with the themes of commercial success in music (selling out), sex and "degenerate" art. Lyrically, the album was composed less of metaphors and did not tell a specific story; rather, it contained a large amount of wordplay and multiple allusions to early twentieth-century film, literature, entertainment, and overall culture. References include Mickey Mouse, Peter Pan, Adolf Hitler and Oscar Wilde. Manson had collaborated with artist Gottfried Helnwein for most of the visual aspects of the era and drew heavily from Mel Gordon's 2000 academic book Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin. Toward the end of the era, the last touring legs and their imagery shifted into an elegant Victorian style, bringing back the themes of Celebritarianism last seen in the Holy Wood era. Manson had now been experiencing depression, largely due to marital problems with his then-wife Dita Von Teese and began focusing on his career in watercolour painting, rather than music.