This is also aided by the fact that I was 15 now. I don't know if it was this summer in particular, but in my mind, I will always be 15. You know, that thing where you feel this or that age, depending on whatever age you feel you are on the inside. I've always felt so young and so old at the same time. Maybe it's the Gemini in me; whether you believe in horoscopes or not, I am very much dual-natured. As such, I've felt this paradoxical state of youth and age, but looking back, I don't want to be 15 again - I just always will be.
Or maybe I'll always be 15.
In any case, one of the things I learned that summer was that having the same few songs and listening to them five hundred times in a row before getting the album could be detrimental to the experience. I call this the Duality of Repetition; either the album is very good, and you mostly skip that song you used to love more than life, or the album is bad, and you just want anything before (or after) that song to cease to exist. It's worse when the song in question is the last or the first song on the album.
Case in point: Chop Suey!
Arguably System of a Down's breakout hit, Chop Suey functioned on a whole different level to what I was used to. It wasn't the relative filthiness of the sound, or not only that, but the distinctive vocal delivery and (and somewhat profound) strange lyrics impressed, to be sure, but not as much as the punch the music packed. To alternate between teeth-grinding passages and the instant earworm chorus had blown me away. Thing is, I had actually come in very near the end of the music video, so I hadn't even heard the whole song, just the bridge and the last chorus, and I was lucky enough to see who this was.
I managed to get the album right before an evening out with the family, which was spent mostly with twirling the cassette in my hands. I first cracked it open in the car, on the way back - forget the ritual, I just couldn't wait.
Prison Song kicked my teeth in and I had fallen for it, and then I was in for the ride.
The music of System of a Down had struck me as being very peculiar and very particular, in that their concern with the harmonious, the focused was balanced with their tendency to go mindlessly all out (Needles is a good example.) Serj Tankian's rather blunt vocal delivery; John Dolmayan's simple-sounding-but-rather-complex drumming and particular sense of rhythm; the rather basic but very effective guitar work of Daron Malakian and his added vocals; and the Thunderbird* stylings of Shavo Odadjian come together in a peculiar-but-particular blend.
Lyrically, System of a Down was weird. For someone like me, whom had been interested in lyricism from roughly the first days of the 2000 Brigade, to encounter something as whacked as the lines Serj Tankian was spouting was like a splash of cold water to the face. It took a bit of interpretation, and was my first inclination that perhaps it was not what you were saying, but how you were not saying that. Songs like X or Bounce or even rather simple ones such as Deer Dance required more than just listening to what was being said. The surreality of it, the paradoxical removal of sense to inject more sense was mesmerizing.
Unfortunately, however, in later years, System of a Down turned out to be rather... vapid, for me. Even going over it recently to refresh my memory, I can hear riffs I've heard elsewhere a dozen times over, the lyrics are needlessly preoccupied with obfuscation, and I really do not like my music mixed with politics, at least not to the degree that System of a Down flaunted it. I do recall a handful of songs, however, and they are: Aerials, Chop Suey!, ATWA and the unforettable Needles.
Things change, I suppose.
*Footnote: 1- The Gibson Thunderbird is a fucking heavy bass; it's thick, filthy, and defines "low end." Nikki Sixxx has a signature model that is pretty sweet, as well. Thing is, you'd think the Thunderbird would get more love from the stoner community, but no, they all want Rickenbacker 4003's, also a favourite of Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead.
Arguably System of a Down's breakout hit, Chop Suey functioned on a whole different level to what I was used to. It wasn't the relative filthiness of the sound, or not only that, but the distinctive vocal delivery and (and somewhat profound) strange lyrics impressed, to be sure, but not as much as the punch the music packed. To alternate between teeth-grinding passages and the instant earworm chorus had blown me away. Thing is, I had actually come in very near the end of the music video, so I hadn't even heard the whole song, just the bridge and the last chorus, and I was lucky enough to see who this was.
I managed to get the album right before an evening out with the family, which was spent mostly with twirling the cassette in my hands. I first cracked it open in the car, on the way back - forget the ritual, I just couldn't wait.
Prison Song kicked my teeth in and I had fallen for it, and then I was in for the ride.
The music of System of a Down had struck me as being very peculiar and very particular, in that their concern with the harmonious, the focused was balanced with their tendency to go mindlessly all out (Needles is a good example.) Serj Tankian's rather blunt vocal delivery; John Dolmayan's simple-sounding-but-rather-complex drumming and particular sense of rhythm; the rather basic but very effective guitar work of Daron Malakian and his added vocals; and the Thunderbird* stylings of Shavo Odadjian come together in a peculiar-but-particular blend.
Lyrically, System of a Down was weird. For someone like me, whom had been interested in lyricism from roughly the first days of the 2000 Brigade, to encounter something as whacked as the lines Serj Tankian was spouting was like a splash of cold water to the face. It took a bit of interpretation, and was my first inclination that perhaps it was not what you were saying, but how you were not saying that. Songs like X or Bounce or even rather simple ones such as Deer Dance required more than just listening to what was being said. The surreality of it, the paradoxical removal of sense to inject more sense was mesmerizing.
Unfortunately, however, in later years, System of a Down turned out to be rather... vapid, for me. Even going over it recently to refresh my memory, I can hear riffs I've heard elsewhere a dozen times over, the lyrics are needlessly preoccupied with obfuscation, and I really do not like my music mixed with politics, at least not to the degree that System of a Down flaunted it. I do recall a handful of songs, however, and they are: Aerials, Chop Suey!, ATWA and the unforettable Needles.
Things change, I suppose.
*Footnote: 1- The Gibson Thunderbird is a fucking heavy bass; it's thick, filthy, and defines "low end." Nikki Sixxx has a signature model that is pretty sweet, as well. Thing is, you'd think the Thunderbird would get more love from the stoner community, but no, they all want Rickenbacker 4003's, also a favourite of Lemmy Kilmister of Motörhead.
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