User:Ezuma/Denim Venom

System of a Down is the eponymous debut album by System of a Down, first released in 1998. The album was certified gold by the RIAA on February 2, 2000. Two years later, after the success of Toxicity, it was certified platinum. Unlike their later and current material, it is Heavy Metal influenced.

Album information
The hand on the front belongs to the artwork of a poster designed by the artist John Heartfield for the Communist Party of Germany during the Third Reich. The text in the original poster is: "5 fingers has a hand! With these 5 grab the enemy!". This slogan inspired part of the text contained in the back of the System of a Down album: "The hand has five fingers, capable and powerful, with the ability to destroy as well as create". Later, it is written in bold letters: "Open your eyes, open your mouths, close your hands and make a fist".

Reception
The album differs greatly from System of a Down's next 4 albums, the music being most influenced by heavy metal.

Q magazine (10/01, p.152) - 4 stars out of 5 - "This remains an excellent starting point for this most curious and underrated of bands."

Personnel

 * System of a Down:
 * Daron Malakian – guitar, background vocals
 * Serj Tankian – vocals, keyboard/samples
 * Shavo Odadjian – bass
 * John Dolmayan – drums


 * Additional Musicians:
 * Extra piano by Rick Rubin
 * Extra noise by Eric "Statik" Anest


 * Produced by Rick Rubin with System of a Down
 * Mixed by D. Sardy
 * Engineered by Sylvia Massy
 * Engineer/assistant engineer: Greg Fidelman
 * Additional recording/finishing touches: D.Sardy
 * Assistant engineers: Sam Story, Nick Raskulinecz
 * Assistant mixdown engineers: James Saez, Greg Gordon, Andy Haller
 * Second assistant mixdown engineer: Bryan Davis
 * Photography: Anthony Artiaga
 * Cover art: John Heartfield
 * Art direction: Frank Harkins & System of a Down
 * A&R direction: Dino Paredes, Sam Wick
 * Management: Velvet Hammer Management, David "Beno" Benveniste
 * Recorded at Sound City, Van Nuys, CA
 * Vocals and additional recordings at Akademie Mathematique of Philosophical Sound Research, Hollywood, CA
 * Mixed at Record Plant Studios, Hollywood, CA & Hollywood Sound, CA
 * Mastered by Vlado Meller at Sony Studios, New York, NY
 * Music written by System of a Down

Booklet message
In the booklet, underneath the band member's photos, the text reads in all capitals: "Announce your anthems on the ceiling. We dance, annexed by power. Casual neckties embrace, the hungry hunger further, images rule through the media, commercial Orwellianism, producing unveiled icebergs, running transparent electrical cables, curving string ensembles, witnessed by hangings from flagpoles of souls avenged by Dr. Clock. Fresh paint, naked melting figures mixing the revolution against T.V. sentencing, at the hands of brutal men and their military business world. Let us instigate the revolt, down with the system!"