A rock opera concept album, it is the final installment of a triptych that also included Antichrist Superstar (1996), and marked a return to the industrial metal style of the band's earlier work, after the glam rock-influenced production of Mechanical Animals (1998).

In the aftermath of the Columbine High School massacre on April 20, 1999, national news media reported that the perpetrators were wearing the band's T-shirts during the rampage, and had been influenced by their music, both of which were untrue.

published a 10th-anniversary commemorative piece in which they called the album "Manson's finest hour ... A decade on, there has still not been as eloquent and savage a musical attack on the media and mainstream culture ... [It is] still scathingly relevant [and] a credit to a man who refused to sit and take it, but instead come out swinging.

[4] Their albums Antichrist Superstar (1996) and Mechanical Animals (1998) were both critical and commercial successes,[5] and by the time of their Rock Is Dead Tour in 1999, the frontman had become a culture war iconoclast and a rallying icon for alienated youth.

[8] Their concerts were routinely picketed by religious advocates and parent groups, who asserted that their music had a corrupting influence on youth culture by inciting "rape, murder, blasphemy and suicide".

[17] On April 29, ten US senators (led by Sam Brownback of Kansas) sent a letter to Edgar Bronfman Jr. – the president of Seagram (the owner of Interscope) – requesting a voluntary halt to his company's distribution to children of "music that glorifies violence".

[20] On May 4, a hearing on the marketing and distribution of violent content to minors by the television, music, film and video-game industries was held by the United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.

The committee heard testimony from former Secretary of Education (and co-founder of conservative violent entertainment watchdog group Empower America) William Bennett, the Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput, professors and mental-health professionals.

Drummer Ginger Fish worked constantly on new material, and is credited with performing keyboards and programming, while keyboardist Madonna Wayne Gacy provided input on "President Dead" and "Cruci-Fiction in Space".

[32][N 1] Locations were chosen for the atmosphere they were intended to impart to the music,[29] and the band visited Death Valley a number of times to "imprint the feeling of the desert into [their] minds", and to avoid composing artificial-sounding songs.

[34] Manson co-produced the album alongside mixing engineer Dave Sardy, while Bon Harris of electronic body music group Nitzer Ebb is credited with programming and pre-production editing.

"[32] It takes place in a thinly-veiled satire of modern America called "Holy Wood", which Manson described as a Disney-esque city-sized amusement park where the main attractions are death and violence, and where consumerism is taken to hyperbolic extreme.

[32] He also called the record "arrogant, in an art rock sense" and said that, as a result of the lyrical content, most of the songs contained three or four distinct parts, although the band took great care to avoid being "self-indulgent".

"[31] Despite being the last of the three albums to be released, Manson explained that the triptych's storyline takes place in reverse chronological order; Holy Wood began the story, and Mechanical Animals and Antichrist Superstar were sequels.

described "The Fight Song" as a "playground punk anthem",[58] and Manson revealed that its theme is Adam's desire to be a part of Holy Wood, saying that it is about "a person who's grown up all his life thinking that the grass is greener on the other side, but when he finally [gets there], he realizes that it's worse than where he came from.

"[33][N 6] Bon Harris contributed the piano work for the final song "Count to Six and Die (The Vacuum of Infinite Space Encompassing)" while Gacy exchanged his mellotron for this track in favor of a string synthesizer.

The first clip was of a rock song which later became "Disposable Teens", while the second was a rough demo of a cover of Frankie Laine and Jimmy Boyd's 1953 single "The Little Boy and the Old Man" (composed by Wayne Shanklin a year earlier as "Little Child"; it was most popularly performed under the title "Mommy Dear" in the 1964 movie The Naked Kiss).

[63] In August, he announced an October 24 release date for the record, and posted a partial track listing containing 13 song titles, while also indicating that their website would be updated weekly.

[51] Within three weeks, the album's full track listing had been revealed, and sound files of "Burning Flag", "Cruci-Fiction in Space" and "The Love Song" had been released for free download,[37] along with the cover of the Holy Wood novel.

Each card was reinterpreted to reflect the iconography of the album's lyrical content: The Fool is stepping off a cliff, with grainy images of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and a JFK campaign poster in the background; The Emperor, with prosthetic legs, is sitting in a wheelchair clutching a rifle in front of an American flag; Justice weighs the Bible against the brain on his balance scale.

[75] The single was released in the UK on November 6, and featured several B-sides, including covers of Lennon's "Working Class Hero" and The Doors' "Five to One", as well as original tracks "Diamonds & Pollen" and "Astonishing Panorama of the Endtimes".

[75] On November 14, the band took a break from the Guns, God and Government Tour to celebrate the album's US release date with a brief, invitation-only acoustic set at the Saci nightclub in New York City.

The set consisted of four songs, including their cover "Suicide Is Painless" – the theme of the film (and TV series) M*A*S*H – which they had recently contributed to the soundtrack of Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2.

[97] Citizens for Peace and Respect, which was supported by Colorado governor Bill Owens and representative Tom Tancredo, claimed on their website that the band "promotes hate, violence, death, suicide, drug use, and the attitudes and actions of the Columbine killers".

The Guns, God and Government DVD was released on October 29, 2002, by Eagle Rock Entertainment, and featured live footage taken from several different performances in Los Angeles, Russia, Japan, and throughout Europe.

Released by Eagle Rock on November 17, 2009, it depicts the band's entire sixteen-song set from their January 13, 2001, performance at the Grand Olympic Auditorium—the final headlining show of the North American leg of the tour.

"[113] Drowned in Sound rated the album 10 out of 10 and praised the band's performance, saying that they "play tighter than [ever] before (looking at the credits show it to be much more of a team effort) ... and, musically, it has a lot more variation and scope than the Limp Bizkits of the world.

"[61] The band's vocalist was also applauded for his lyricism; Barry Walters of Rolling Stone commended him for "addressing real-life issues with a theatrical verve and genuine vitriol that no other mainstream act can match.

[5] A 2016 feature in Houston Press called Holy Wood "the album that really cemented the band as more than just shock-rockers, but true musical mavericks with an intelligent perspective on social issues.

This resulted in Holy Wood being banned from sale at major retailers such as Walmart and Kmart, who enforce a strict policy on not stocking albums labeled with a Parental Advisory sticker.