Rick Rubin put it best when he said System of a Down “didn’t fit in anywhere, but they are so good that they transcended not fitting”. I would also add that they transcend any preconceived notion about this was your “type of music” or not. The music is heavy, you can say it’s metal, but it’s so unique and dynamic that it’s common for heavy metal lovers to hate it and heavy metal haters to love it. Simply put, SOAD are in a league of their own.
I discovered System in the mid-2000s when some guitarhead friends talked about them in school. I was around 10 at the time. I went home that night and downloaded Fuck the System and Forest off LimeWire. And soon got the Mesmerise CD which to this day is probably my most frequently played beginning-to-end records of all time.
Serj starts the book by giving us a brief history lesson. The geopolitical environment in the Ottoman Empire and Armenia at the time, and recounts his family’s suffering during the Armenian Genocide and how this pain was passed on through the generations. This pain is shared by countless families, and is injected into the soul of SOAD and its music. You can hear Armenian folk roots in many of their songs, and this is part of what makes it so memorable. The other part is the juxtaposition between heavy and light, serious and playful, and the signature vocal harmonies between Serj and Daron.
I am actually not so familiar with Serj’s post-SOAD work, but it was amazing to learn about his various projects with FCC, film scoring, and live orchestras. Now I have a lot of new art to check out.
Love the music, love Serj, love the book, love learning about SOAD’s activism and impact spreading awareness on the genocide. Easy 5* for me