This. It was such a blatant cash-in on the commercial metal success of Metallica that it left a bad taste in the mouth and they never regained my respect after that. They have no decent albums outside those three you mentioned. Some good songs, definitely (which I've compiled and listen to a lot) - and yes, a handful of those are from Countdown... - but nothing worth shelling out for. A shadow of the band they were, and could have been.

I'd agree with that, although let us remember Megadeth weren't the only ones: Testament did it with The Ritual as well.

For me, CtE was the end of my 'deth interest: not only were the songs pretty dull but we also saw Mustaine transform into a right-wing religious loon, which means I have no interest in giving him my money.

Biggest sell-out attempt ever made by Megadeth was Risk. Endgame was a collection of riffs which weren't used to their full potential. Dystopia is the first decent Megadeth album since Countdown, which despite having a dated production and being an attempt to get the Metallica money, it still had some corking songs on it.

NP:

Tongue Party - Looking For A Painful Death.

Youthanasia is damn good imo. Probably sounds better now than it did then.

What's strange though is how Mustaine kept misreading market signals. When Countdown did really well he thought 'we'll simplify the songs even more and sell more albums'. That was logical from the point of view of increasing popularity, but when Youthanasia sold less than half of Countdown, he just kept going further along that route, as if the real problem was that they hadn't gone commercial enough, so they put out Cryptic Writings then Risk. Each album was more watered down than the last.

Say what you want about Youthanasia, but they still retained their musical identity on that album. Cryptic Writings sounded quite fractured but still kind of like them, even if the essence was fading, but Risk was the sound of a band who were completely lost.

N.P Megadeth The System Has Failed

It looks like I may be one of the few who really enjoy Countdown To Extinction (and Youthanasia) around here. I think I do separate them from the albums preceding. It would be foolish to argue that they weren't angling towards wider appeal, but for mine it's no more commercially conscious than, say, Holy Diver.

I find it to be well-written, concise metal songs. I can definitely see people taking umbrage with Mustaine's voice and his various vocal tics, but I think the songs are there. And despite it's commercial bent, you didn't see them go the 'Nothing Else Matters' route here, so I'm not too cynical about the 'selling out'.

From what I've read, it appears that Mustaine became a bit maniacal about hitting #1 on Billboard, and I think that explains them devolving toward Risk, which is one thing, but the strangest part about that album is how gloriously out of touch it is with what was popular contemporary rock of the time. It's like a long lost Bon Jovi record with Mustaine guesting as vocalist.

Now Playing:

Warlock - "Hellbound" (1985)

Yep. Tons of great riffs and melodies, and Mustaine really pushed his vocals on both of those albums, especially Youthanasia.



That's part of what I meant by them being lost. They had no idea where they are going.

^^Underrated album. Their 90's style was simple but good.

I'm feeling a bit scatterbrained tonight it seems.

^^Great performance.

I did see this the other day. I know Corgan has done some solo acoustic tours of late (I think prior to the "original line-up" reunion). The production of '1979' on the album plays such a pivotal role, so it was always going to be interesting how it translated so stripped down. I agree, this was a great interpretation.

I'd go further and say that if you don't like that version then you don't really understand the song at all. That version cuts right to the 'heart', so to speak. Right to the feeling. Corgan has become better at acoustic stuff since his last solo album, which was surprisingly good, if a bit long.


N.P TIAMAT The Scarred People