I had just begun 7th grade when I was talking about music with a friend and back then I didn’t have a wide variety in my taste in music but each of us mentioned “one” was a great album, the one he mentioned was System of A Down’s self-titled album. We each lent each other an album and began to listen. I don’t really remember what I thought about it when I first heard it, I didn’t love it but I remember listening to it many times so I’m guessing I didn’t hate it either. I used to listen to it a few times while making Pokemon Decks for the Pokemon league on friday nights. Funnily enough I don’t remember thinking it was a particularly heavy album and this was one of my first exposures to metal. My friend eventually moved without warning so he never gave me back my album and I got to keep this one, my only problem when I was older is that it was an edited CD and the only edited version of the CD that I ever owned.
At the peak of nu-metal popularity System of a Down became pretty popular quickly but it really wasn’t until their second album that they reached mainstream popularity where most at least knew who they were even if they didn’t like metal. I kind of stopped liking SOAD after they became so popular as their songs were played too often but listening to this album makes me appreciate the band again and even appreciate their other albums.
The music video for “Sugar” seems like a generic political video and terribly enough it can be seen as relevant today as it was in the late 90s Not much goes. It isn’t a terribly interesting video but it’s about the music so it cna get a pass as it’s not a bad song. The song starts with “The Kombucha mushroom people” and for the longest time I thought he began with “loco mucho”, misheard lyrics really are the best.
Now the music video for “Spiders” had a much higher budget as they actually try something a little more artistic and maybe a little too much like a Tool video mixed with an 80s henson movie but it’s still good decent not being either one. Seeing Serj Tankian with somoan like tattoos and heavy dreads alone makes the it worth watching
Like most of their albums it isn’t very long at about 40 minutes or so but that’s not a negative here. This album is also much heavier than their later ones but it hits the same themes and is still catchy. Overall it’s a great album that you can listen to from beginning to end even if it doesn’t quite end as strong as it began. You can listen to the complete album here:
