Antichrist Superstar

Second Marilyn Manson studio album, released 8 October 1996. A 'musical ritual to bring about the Apocalypse'.



The album tracks are divided into three sections or cycles:

Cycle I. The Hierophant

1. Irresponsible Hate Anthem
2. The Beautiful People
3. Dried Up, Tied And Dead To The World
4. Tourniquet

Cycle II. Inauguration of the Worm

5. Little Horn
   
6. Cryptorchid
7. Deformography
8. Wormboy
9. Mister Superstar
10. Angel With The Scabbed Wings
11. Kinderfeld

Cycle III. Disintergrator Rising

12. Antichrist Superstar
13. 1996
14. Minute Of Decay
15. The Reflecting God
16. Man That You Fear
17. Untitled / track 99

For the opening track it says: Irresponsible Hate Anthem ('recorded live, Feb. 14, 1997'). This is a deliberate 'mistake'.

Symbols and sigils

I cannot say for sure about all of the symbolism used on the album cover but I will add notes about the three shown above. The information I have comes from posters on MM related forums.

The HIHV, HVIH , VHHI are said to represent the four letters of the Tetragrammaton; they are 'the Banners of the Name' of God.

It seems highly likely that Manson and Pogo took inspiration from a book called "Tetragrammaton: The Secret to Evoking Angelic Powers and the Key to the Apocalypse", they possibly also read a 1996 article called 'The Enochian Apocalypse'. Both were written by Donald Tyson.

The symbols or 'sigils' in ACSS are more embelished than Tyson's though. Additions are the square, crescent and circle - representing the earth, the moon and the sun. The astrological glyphs on the right of each one are for Capricorn, Pisces and Gemini. To the left are Hebrew letters.

Underneath the sigils are binary numbers and roman numerals. Track down Tyson's book for more clues about the probable basis of the ACSS theme.
Tracks on ACSS era singles

Note that although there is a video for the song, Man That You Fear, no commercial CD single was released, only a one-track promotional CD.