Symphony of Destruction - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2LG7JXK5mQ&feature=related
or the destruction of a career?
When contemplating a cd review, this is the first that came to mind, not because I think it's particularly well written or enjoyable (I do think that, but we'll get to that later), but because I feel it was a tipping point in not only in the band's career, but for the overall genre as well.
Taken from the band's wikipedia page:
"Countdown to Extinction is the fifth studio album by American heavy metal band Megadeth, released in 1992. It is the band's best-selling album selling over two million copies and achieving Double platinum status. The album also produced the band's most successful hit singles: "Symphony of Destruction", "Sweating Bullets", "Skin O' My Teeth" and "Foreclosure of a Dream". Videos were made for all singles and also for "High Speed Dirt".
Countdown to Extinction was nominated for Best Metal Performance at the 1993 Grammy Awards.
According to "National Album Positioning Charts", Countdown To Extinction sold 2,197,960 albums in United States.
It is the band's first album not to feature their mascot Vic Rattlehead on the album cover."
Foreclosure of a Dream - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pQK6bh5zkI
"It's about what happened to my family under the Reagan administration. The government put my family, who were farmers in Minnesota, out of business." (Ellefson, 1992)
You'll notice that I'm including videos from the album on this post, and while I will make a larger point about them later, I would like to point out that they're not imbedded in the post because I wanted to include the original videos and youtube has them marked as 'embedding disabled by request.'
Sweating Bullets - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOnKCcjP8Qs&feature=avmsc2
To offer a point of referrence, I was a freshman in high school when this album was released in 1992. At that time I, along with most of my other friends who enjoy this type of music, felt very betrayed by the release of this album, and with the clarity of hindsight it seems many others did as well. Not because an artist we enjoyed failed to deliver a good piece of work, they did that much, but because they obviously made some changes (read: compromises) to their creative style in an attempt to make more money.
The album that was released prior to this, Rust in Peace, had one very commercial track that became a big single for the band,
Hangar 18 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDnBpdL-aOs&feature=avmsc2
This was a double edged sword for the band. On one hand it opened them up to a wider fan base and really attracted the attention of MTV, on the other hand, the pressures and problems that come with that success ultimately came along with it. The real problem for the band though, was that the commercial qualities of that song weren't what most of their fan base wanted, nor was it really what gave them the brief success they enjoyed and caused Countdown to Extinction to debut at #2 on Billboard's chart. The real reason for that success was that Rust in Peace was full of amazing musical intricacy, such as what is displayed in this song:
or this song:
Apparently no one stopped to ask the fans which part they liked more, and as a result this album rode on the coattails of it's predecessor. What is sad, even in the liner notes written by Dave Mustaine for the 2005 re-release, he fails to realize this was the case. I could sit here and talk about it all day, but I'd rather let you hear some of the evidence for yourself. Below you'll find the official studio version that was originally released for two songs, and the original demo versions for those same songs (included on the 2005 reissue) that were offered as a start, before the folks at the label got ahold of them. Ignore the vocals on the demos, they're pretty rough, but if you can listen beyond, you'll hear the musical direction that this album should have taken and would have given the band continued success and longevity.
Countdown to Extinction (Official release) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2EMyYrZ4nk
"This is no safari, the hunt is canned"
Countdown to Extinction (Demo version) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aobSpxJMBFA
Architecture of Aggression (Official release) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PcqqV4p-6Q
Architecture of Aggression (Demo Version) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8hOMzY51d0
All in all this was a solid effort from an already accomplished band, but it could have been more and carved a much more direct pathway for the artists that came next.
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