The Pale Emperor is the ninth studio album by American rock band Marilyn Manson. It was released on January 15, 2015, through lead singer Marilyn Manson's Hell, etc. label, and distributed in the United States by Loma Vista Recordings and internationally by Cooking Vinyl. The album was issued in standard and deluxe editions on CD and double LP vinyl, and as a limited edition box set. The standard version of the album contains ten tracks; the deluxe edition includes three acoustic versions as bonus tracks.
Produced by Manson and newcomer Tyler Bates, who Manson met through their mutual involvement in the TV series Californication, The Pale Emperor eschews the band's usual industrial rock style in favor of a sparser, blues rock-influenced sound. The album features drummer Gil Sharone, formerly of Stolen Babies and The Dillinger Escape Plan. It was the first album since his return to the band in 2008 to not include songwriting or performance contributions from bassist Twiggy Ramirez, who was busy with his own projects. The album is dedicated to Manson's mother, who died of Alzheimer's disease during production.
The album was released to positive reviews from music critics. Several writers referred to it as the band's best album in over a decade, and multiple publications ranked it as one of the best albums of 2015. It was also a commercial success, debuting at number eight on the Billboard 200 with the band's highest opening week sales since Eat Me, Drink Me (2007). It topped Billboards Hard Rock Albums chart, as well as the national albums chart in Switzerland, and peaked within the top ten in fifteen other countries.
Three official singles were released, "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge", "Cupid Carries a Gun" and "Deep Six"; the latter became the band's highest-peaking single on Billboard'''s Mainstream Rock Chart; "The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles" and "The Devil Beneath My Feet" have been released as promotional singles. The album was supported by The Hell Not Hallelujah Tour, which was interspersed with two co-headlining tours: The End Times with The Smashing Pumpkins, and a summer 2016 tour with Slipknot.
Background and recording Marilyn Manson was one of the most controversial metal bands of the late 1990s. In 1999, news media scapegoated the band for influencing the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre, which the vocalist has claimed "totally shoved [my career] in the dirt". Subsequent albums were criticized by both critics and fans alike, and the band was dropped by its long-time record label Interscope in 2009. A year later, they signed a joint-venture deal with London-based independent record label Cooking Vinyl. Born Villain was released in 2012, and was heralded as a return to form.
In August 2012, it was announced that Manson would play a fictionalized version of himself in a four-episode arc of the sixth season of TV series Californication. While filming its season finale, Manson met the series' score composer, Tyler Bates, and the two discussed a potential collaboration. In May 2013, Manson confirmed that production had started on new material. They held their first writing session in a small rehearsal space, accompanied by former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo. This session proved unsuccessful, and the pair failed to write any substantial material. Bates later suggested that they hold further writing sessions at his home studio, which resulted in their composition of "Birds of Hell Awaiting" in "one spontaneous exchange".
This was quickly followed by "Third Day of a Seven Day Binge". Manson said that the recording of the album "just became a rhythm. This was something I was excited to do." This is in stark contrast to the recording of The High End of Low (2009) and Born Villain, when he was frequently "dragged into the studio" late at night to record vocals. He credited this enthusiasm to the collaborative process between him and Bates, saying that he realized after the first performance of "Birds of Hell Awaiting" that "[I] just sang it. I didn't even know where the music was going to go and I just went with it and it was very organic. And then it opened up a whole different part of my mind."
Bates called the recording process "seamless" because of the unconventional studio environment. Manson, isolated in a vocal booth with no more than three people in the control room at any one time, was free to improvise or develop new lyrics and vocal melodies at a high speed. By using Pro Tools, Bates was able to "manipulate the music in a way that would allow [Manson] to just keep working on it without causing [a delay]. If he had an idea, he could just throw it down without there being a lot to explain." The majority of the album was recorded during a three-month period. The band's manager, Tony Ciulla, only became aware that Manson had been recording new material when he was invited to Bates' home recording studio, where Bates played final cuts of nine of the album's ten tracks; "Cupid Carries a Gun" was the only track not yet completed. With the base tracks recorded, overdubbing took place over the following six months between Manson's acting commitments on Sons of Anarchy and Bates scoring the 2014 television series Salem.
Gil Sharone, of The Dillinger Escape Plan and Stolen Babies, performed live drums on the album. Sharone was first contacted by Bates about the project in January 2014, three days before he was due to begin a tour with Stolen Babies. He developed and recorded his drum work over two days at Igloo Studios in Burbank, California. Long-time bassist – and Manson's chief collaborator – Twiggy did not take part in the writing and recording process, as he was busy recording his own material. It was the first release since his return to the band in 2008 to not feature Twiggy's involvement. His collaborator on the Goon Moon project, Fred Sablan, departed Marilyn Manson on good terms. Manson's Sons of Anarchy co-star Walton Goggins appears as a preacher on album track "Slave Only Dreams to Be King", reciting two verses from James Allens early 20th-century essay As a Man Thinketh. Manson announced that the band's new album was "prepared for landing" in early September. He dedicated the record to his mother, Barbara Warner, who died on May 13, 2014, eight years after being diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.
Composition and style
In a January 2014 interview with Kerrang! magazine, Manson described the sound of the album as being "very cinematic", saying that the "redneck in me comes out in my voice" owing to the album's inclusion of blues influences, while still retaining the harder elements of previous work. The album has been compared to the music which was used to soundtrack Sons of Anarchy. Manson called himself "a man of few words" [on the record], opting to allow melody to be its primary focus, instead of using characters or extended metaphors to compose lyrics. Lyrics for the album were all derived from a single notebook, with Manson admitting that the content of previous work was too scattered, as they were composed of material taken from up to 20 different notebooks. He has described it as being intentionally sparse lyrically, elaborating that blues music stems from the "guttural, visceral element of music. I [left] holes in these stories so it becomes your story, it becomes more cinematic. For example in the film Rosemary's Baby, you don't see the baby but in your mind you do."The Pale Emperor is a departure from the band's usual style, leaning away from the industrial production that appeared on much of their previous work and incorporating a sparser sound, which has been described as blues rock, alternative rock, hard rock, and alternative country. Manson cited the music of Muddy Waters, The Rolling Stones, and The Doors as inspirations. Steven Hyden of Grantland identified several parallels between The Pale Emperor and the Doors' 1971 album L.A. Woman, suggesting that in the two albums both bands were re-energized in the latter part of their career. He also compared Manson's vocal style to that of Jim Morrison, and claimed the album's lyrics echo Morrison's "self-destructive self-aggrandizement". The album's title is a reference to Constantius I – or Constantius the Pale – who was the first Roman emperor to deny the existence of a God. The album was inspired by an Antonin Artaud book given to Manson by actor Johnny Depp about the life of the decadent emperor Heliogabalus. Manson has said its meaning can have several interpretations: "complexion or Goth music or 'beyond the pale' or [...] everything 'pales in comparison' to it". Lyrically, the album deals with mortality, war, violence, slavery and religion, and includes references to Greek mythology and German folklore, specifically the story of Faust and Mephistopheles. "The Mephistopheles of Los Angeles" was the original title track and, according to Manson, the album's heart. The Pale Emperor makes use of an extended metaphor, in which Manson compares his own career to the life of Faust. He told The Philadelphia Inquirer that he "sold [his] soul to become a rock star, and this payment in full—with interest, considering the last few bills I didn't pay," explaining that he considered The High End of Low and Born Villain lacking in focus. He elaborated to Classic Rock magazine: If we stick to the Faust story – if I had been in that story – and I had sold my soul [to the devil] for fame and fortune, and had the arrogance of [Faust] to not want to pay back the deal, it's taken a few years for me to acknowledge to myself that I was hearing: 'Manson [rapping his knuckles on the table], the hell hounds are on your trail.' And this record is my payment. This is me giving back what I was given, or took. [...] If you believe in some mythology, and you want to live by those rules, then I had to say myself: 'I'm not really doing what I set out to do,' even though I tried to convince myself that I was. I'm not regretting the last few records that I've made, but since Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), I've not made something with [that] sheer utter fearlessness and anger and force.
Throughout the album, Manson sings in a different key than on any of the band's previous releases. He has claimed that his voice can emit five different tones simultaneously, and that mixing engineer Robert Carranza showed him that a recording of his vocals formed a visual pentagram when imported into a phrasal analyzer. Bates has said that the vocals on the album are stripped down in comparison to previous records, which he considered to be overproduced.
Release and artwork The band announced the album's title and release date on its official website on November 9, 2014. Its global release schedule started on January 15, 2015. Formats included standard and deluxe edition CDs; a heavyweight 180-gram double LP vinyl album, available in black, white and a grey marble-effect limited edition, the latter of which was exclusive to Hot Topic; and as a digital download, including 24-bit AIFF and WAV format files, which were released exclusively on Qobuz. The LP discs were manufactured at Record Technology, Inc. in Camarillo, California, on high-quality vinyl. A digital download of the album was packaged with all LP editions.