Mer de Noms
Studio album by A Perfect Circle
Released	May 23, 2000
Genre	Alternative rock
Length	44:25
Label	Virgin Records
Producer	Billy Howerdel
Professional reviews
Allmusic link Entertainment Weekly (A-) link Melody Maker link MTV Asia (8/10) link NME (7/10) link Q link Rolling Stone link Sputnikmusic link
A Perfect Circle chronology
Mer de Noms (2000) Thirteenth Step (2003)

Mer de Noms is the debut album by American rock band A Perfect Circle. The album was released under Compact Disc format on May 23, 2000. It was certified platinum by the RIAA on October 31, 2000. The album entered the Billboard 200 at No. 4 with over 188,000 copies sold in the first week, making it the highest ever Billboard 200 debut for a rock band's first album.^[1] The album stayed on the charts for 51 consecutive weeks.^[2] The album peaked at No. 27 on the Billboard Top Pop Catalog Albums on October 4, 2003, three years after the album's release.

[edit] Overview

Most of the album's lyrics were dedicated to various people that lead singer Maynard James Keenan knew. The title of the album is French for "sea of names". The track listing consists of various names such as "Judith", "Breña", "Rose", "Thomas", "Magdalena", "Orestes," and "Renholdër" (for musician Danny Lohner).

The sigils on the front cover of the album can be translated to "LA CASCADE DES PRENOMS", which translated to English means "The waterfall of first names."

[edit] Track listing

All songs written and composed by Billy Howerdel and Maynard James Keenan. 

The vinyl version contains "Sleeping Beauty" with extended intro and alternate mix of "Over".

[edit] Symbols

Inside the insert the track names appear to be randomly spelled out in symbols. One way to decipher the symbols is to match the song titles using the normal alphabet with the song titles inside the insert.

The symbols which have popularly become known online as “APC Text,” “Mayan,” or “Elegant Mayan,” have become surprisingly widespread, appearing in tattoos, computer fonts, and independent artwork.^{[citation needed]}

A legend depicting the symbol's letters translated from the Latin alphabet.

Inside the insert there are twelve pictures (one for each song) and next to each one a song title, and beneath that a portion of the song's lyrics all written out in the symbols shown above. An example of this would be the drawing of the red octopus, which has the song name "Orestes" and "Sever this umbilical residue" beneath it.

[edit] Personnel

• Maynard James Keenan - vocals, gourd (incorrectly spelled in the album as "Gord")
• Billy Howerdel - guitars, background vocals, lead vocals ("Renholdër"), bass, programming, keyboards, piano, production, mixing, engineering
• Josh Freese - drums, percussion
• Tim Alexander - drums ("The Hollow")
• Paz Lenchantin - violins, string arrangement, background vocals, bass on ("Sleeping Beauty")
• Luciano Lenchantin - viola ("3 Libras")
• Troy Van Leeuwen - end lead guitar ("Sleeping Beauty" and "Thinking Of You")
• Draven Godwin - percussion ("Thomas")
• Kelli Shafer - vocals ("Renholdër")
• Alan Moulder - mixing
• Frank Gryner - drum engineering
• Steven R. Gilmore - sleeve art direction, design, digital photographic manipulation
• Sean Murphey - photography

[edit] Charts

Album

Singles

[edit] See also

• List of works in irregular time signatures

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mer de Noms symbols font