And the reason they followed in those footsteps of those bands to became one of the most popular heavy rock acts in the world was because they wrote incredible songs like this. Indeed, this song marked the moment, as with bands like Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Metallica before them, that SOAD became so successful their music was no longer part of the underground but part of popular culture at large. The song also serves as a pre-cursor to Aerials, which is the next song on our list.Ĭast in layers of aural complexity, Tankian’s metaphorical lyrics of mental emancipation unfold via the course of Aerials heavy verse / light chorus song structure that recalls The Unforgiven by Metallica. The song starts off slow and soft before building towards its intense climax, its cerebral lyrics about dreams and mind control setting a dark and unsettling tone that contrasts completely with the bouncy absurdity of Sugar. The second single to be released from System of a Down, Spiders sounds unlike anything else on the debut album, proving even early on that the band were capable of writing haunting melodies. Snot: the tragic story of nu metal’s great lost band.Revenge of the freaks: how nu metal took over the world.Here's Donald Trump singing Chop Suey by System Of A Down.System Of A Down's Chop Suey covered by different animals.It’s strange to imagine it now, but Toxicity was a major cultural phenomenon, and that’s entirely down to the strength of its material: the band refined and improved on what they’d done for the debut album, developing their mélange of progressive rock, thrash metal, hardcore punk, new wave and eastern influences, injecting added melody to create truly timeless anthems like Toxicity, which has lost none of its urgency or impact over the course of the last 15 years.
It was also arguably the first metal masterpiece of the 21 st century, going platinum within six weeks and triple platinum within one year.
Toxicity came out the week of 9/11, and it felt more in tune with the scary post-Millennial era than any other album around. Tankian’s spitfire rap delivery is interspersed with vocal acrobatics ranging all the way from death metal growls to falsetto shrieks, all the while sounding certifiably insane, and in less than three minutes you knew heavy music would never be the same again. Sugar was the first single from SOAD’s debut album, and as such it introduced the world to the band’s unrelenting, schizophrenic, utterly bizarre aesthetic that as long as it didn’t have running for cover was sure to have you hooked for the foreseeable future. Violent Pornography is as crazy, catchy and heavy as metal music gets, and once again, with ridiculous lyrics like ‘ It’s a non-stop disco / Bet you it’s Nabisco,’ you just can’t imagine another band pulling it off - it’s 100% unmistakably System Of A Down.
Best system of a down album skin#
The first in their double album saga, Mezmerize marked the point at which SOAD shed their nu-metal skin and ditched the down-tuned guitars for an altogether cleaner sound, thus morphing into an all-round hard rock band capable of being progressive, original, accessible and brutal in equal measures. As a result, the songs were more intricate and dynamic, as perfectly showcased by the seven-minute rock symphony of Holy Mountains, which spellbindingly leads the listener towards the final reflective moments of their epic double album. By the time they released their fifth studio album Hypnotize, the chaos and aggression that SOAD had built their reputation on was still present, but it was filtered through a maturity in the song writing.
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