Marilyn Manson to Remind the World How Cool He Was in 1996

Depending on your age range and personal tastes, Marilyn Manson’s 1996 album, Antichrist Superstar, is either a gothy pop metal masterpiece, a shameless attempt to repeat the success of The Downward Spiral (Trent Reznor co-produced and co-wrote much of the record), or a relic of a bygone era with which you’re not especially concerned. Inarguably, though, Antichrist remains Manson’s highest-selling album, most well-liked album, and the album for which he is now, and shall always be, famous.

So it’s not surprising that Manson has announced plans to release a twentieth anniversary edition of Antichrist Superstar. Music-wise, it’s not currently clear what will differentiate this version of the album from the original (Demos? Unreleased tracks? Remixing and remastering?), but in a new interview with Dazed, Manson does reveal a visual component of the release:

“…it has a legendary video that I had to put into a safe for the past 15 years, for reasons that will be revealed when you watch it. I had innocently thought that it was acceptable to use it as sort of a bonus feature on my Dead to the World video for the Antichrist Superstar tour. However, the legal department and my management informed me otherwise. But now it is going to be seen by all. I won’t say anything else to spoil it, just that it captured a moment in time, after I had just moved to Los Angeles. I was living with Twiggy (Ramirez, Manson’s longtime guitarist) and I had just come off a tour where I got death threats every day. It’s an interesting portrayal of what was happening at the time, but strangely, it doesn’t seem any different than the way I behave now, except that I’m wearing a cowboy hat. That’s about it.”

What could be so risqué about the video that Manson has been forced to keep it under wraps for so long? My guess would be “nothing really” — this is all hype (Manson is good at hype). But who knows? Maybe it’s a Marilyn/Twiggy sex tape. Maybe it’s videographic evidence that O.J. Simpson killed Nicole Brown Simpson. Maybe as soon as you finish watching it, your phone rings and a creepy voice says, “Seven days.”

I guess we’ll find out when Antichrist Remember When I Was a Superstar? comes out October 20. Oh boy oh boy.

[via Metal Injection]