In the Rankings
Every System of a Down Song Jimmy Carlson
Following the 90s, mainstream metal was choking on its own figurative vomit. Pantera was soon to release their final album, Metallica had run the course of their odd hard rock phase and had nowhere left to go but down, the golden age of thrash metal was long since gone, and nu metal was running out of ideas to recycle. Many groups would help to fill the void, yes (Tool was yet to reach their peak, Slipknot had just taken off, and the “core” genres were still in a pioneering phase, to name a few), but there is arguably no metal band more synonymous with the early 2000s than System of a Down. Few groups in history have combined brutal heaviness with goosebump-inducing melodic sensibility and political awareness with total absurdity in such a complete, satisfying musical whole as SoaD have in their five albums, and probably none with the same level of commercial success. They also happen to be one of my favorite bands of all time. This term, I decided to make a list of every System of a Down song ever, ranked (theoretically) from best to worst. This decision came with a mixed bag of feelings and opinions for me. Before I embarked on this challenge, I was of the firm opinion that SoaD was a band with fewer bad songs than the top speed in miles per hour of a naked mole rat (like 5, or something). I saw legitimate and unique artistic value in everything they wrote, and frequently found that my favorite song of theirs was
Art: Aviva Sachs NF011 | 14