System Of A Down’s Toxicity – the landmark nu metal album which spawned Chop Suey!, Aerials and other generation-defining hits – turns 25 today!
To celebrate the occasion, Metal Hammer has teamed up with the Armenian-American nu metal titans to offer a new, amber-coloured vinyl variant of their magnum opus. It comes with a separate seven-inch single containing Johnny: a rare bonus track only previously available on select international physical releases. Order your copy now!
Released on September 4, 2001, and produced by the visionary Rick Rubin (returning after System’s 1998 debut album), Toxicity affirmed the band as one of the leading lights in 21st-century metal. Its lead single, the Grammy-nominated Chop Suey!, was released on August 13 and became their first song to chart on the US Billboard Hot 100. It also cracked the top 20 in the UK.
After that, Toxicity debuted at the top of the US Billboard 200. Critics and audiences connected with the album’s distinct fusion of contemporary heaviness with Armenian folk music, as well as its unabashedly political lyrical themes, including the environment, protests and US foreign policy.
In the decade-and-a-half since, Toxicity’s become venerated as a classic. It’s been certified seven-times Platinum in the US by the Recording Industry Association Of America (RIAA) and two-times Platinum in the UK. Globally, it’s sold an estimated 15 million units, and in May, Chop Suey! surpassed the two-billion stream threshold on Spotify.
Just before Toxicity’s release in 2001, drummer John Dolmayan told Metal Hammer about the musical evolution he and his bandmates had undergone since the self-titled debut.
“Second albums are what bands live or die on,” he said. “Toxicity is the next step but we still love listening to the first album. It really captures how pissed off we were at the time and how long we’d waited to be heard. So inevitably it was all just snarling shit. On this album we had time to growl before screaming.”
Later, talking to Loudwire in 2018, guitarist/vocalist Daron Malakian looked back on writing Chop Suey!, revealing that the band didn’t have as much as a tour bus when they wrote their breakthrough hit.
“We were still in an RV and I was playing my acoustic guitar in the back of the RV where there was a bed,” he reflected. “I never write on the road. That’s one of the few, very few songs that I wrote while I was on the road. I remember writing the song when the RV was on the highway. I don’t know where we were, probably [driving] to the next gig, and it all came to me just hanging out in the back of the RV playing my acoustic guitar.”
Order your amber Toxicity vinyl, with the Johnny seven-inch, now via the Louder webstore!
(Image credit: Future)