Background
The album's title is a takeoff on Andrew Lloyd Webber's 1971 musical Jesus Christ Superstar. Similarly, the record is a rock opera which, in an issue of Kerrang! magazine edited by the band's frontman, is stated as a tribute to—and inspired by—the works of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
After the release of Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), Marilyn Manson divulged that his concept album trilogy is an autobiographical story told in a reverse timeline (chronologically reverse from their actual release dates). That means Holy Wood opens the storyline followed by Mechanical Animals and concludes with Antichrist Superstar. Furthermore, though Antichrist Superstar and Mechanical Animals made sense as individual concept albums on their own, there was a hidden overarching story running through the three releases.
Read more about this topic: Antichrist Superstar
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