![]() I'm just sitting in my car and waiting for my. Was fashion the reason why they were there? Why don't you ask the kids at Tiananmen Square? " Psycho" (Live at the London Astoria - Clean) All live tracks were recorded at the Hurricane Festival 2005 show, except where noted.Another meaning that can come from the chorus is that while propaganda is rampant, life goes on. However, from the point of a listener, this may well mean again, the reference to the "simple minded". The chorus is unrelated with the rest of the song: in an interview with MTV, Daron stated that the song was written while he was actually sitting in his car waiting for his girlfriend. The song's lyrics in the verses reference the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 and propaganda. At 1:53 in the video a woman is seen flashing her boobs to a camera on the far right, the exposure could have been unoticed or simply missed by the editing and it is uncensored. ![]() Unknown to many, there is brief nudity in the video. This could possibly be the pesticide referred to in the song Attack of the same album. The beginning and ending of the video show a helicopter spraying red matter across Grand Rapids (Forming at the end the album's artwork). The music video is mostly footage from one of the band's September 2005 concerts, (filmed at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan) but includes a CGI scene of painting along with the music the audio is dubbed over with the studio track. The song leads up to a massive crescendo, then ends with a repeated portion of the opening riff with soft singing by Malakian. The Eastern-themed instrumental bridge contains at least four overdubbed clean guitar tracks and a well-crafted, syncopated rhythm. Musical discontinuities like this can be found all over the song and creates heavily psychedelic tone. Even stranger is the minor-key bridge, which loyally follows the chords expected from an F# minor song (F#m, D, Bm, E, A, and C#). This produces a direct switch from a major key to the minor key of the same name. The opening guitar riff and early verses use an upbeat melody that follows the F# major scale, but with a flatted sixth (a D instead of a D#). It is difficult to determine whether the key is F# minor or F# major. Musically, "Hypnotize" is somewhat of an enigma. The combination of the two vocalists gives the song a vocal range, with Serj handling the lower verses and Daron delivering the high parts of the refrains. Serj and Daron perform a harmony in the refrain before and after the instrumental bridge. In case there was any doubt, they nail in concise factoids (‘ Nearly two million Americans are incarcerated / In the prison system, prison system of the U.S.’, ‘ The percentage of Americans in the prison system has doubled since 1985’, ‘ All research and successful drug policies show that treatment should be increased / And law enforcement decreased while abolishing mandatory minimum sentences…’) to solidify a righteous statement right at the outset of their triple-platinum career-high.As in many Mezmerize/Hypnotize songs, guitarist Daron Malakian accompanies Serj Tankian in the vocal sections. A bludgeoning, juggernaut riff gives way to storming vocals challenging the American prison industrial system, and pointing the finger at a government largely responsible for the domestic proliferation of drugs yet whose prison system is half-populated by drug offenders. The balls-out opening track (and unofficial airplay-only single) to Toxicity finds the band at their most ostentatiously political, picking up the baton dropped when their friends in Rage Against The Machine had disbanded the year before. ![]() Hope endures, but while we’re holding out for that new album to change the game all over again, here’s our definitive Top 20 to keep everyone busy arguing in the meantime… Vocalist Serj Tankian’s solo work and contributions alongside Tom Morello on Axis Of Justice, bassist Shavo Odadjian’s AcHoZeN, and guitarist Daron Malakian’s stunning Scars On Broadway (sometimes featuring drummer John Dolmayan) have shown flashes of brilliance, but the old chemistry has never fully been rekindled. From 1998’s earthquaking self-titled debut and 2001’s era-defining masterpiece Toxicity to 2002’s pirate-hijacked Steal This Album! and 2005’s towering sister releases Mezmerize and Hypnotize, there was constant cutting-edge evolution, but also a singularity of sound that even their most esteemed peers could never hope to touch.Īcross the years since, the band have resurfaced and departed again and again. They might’ve managed only five studio albums in a short seven-and-a-bit year stretch between June 1998 and November 2005, but such is the level of consistent quality, quirkiness and genre-shaping innovation from Los Angeles quartet System Of A Down that it’s truly difficult to narrow their catalogue down to just 20 songs. ![]()
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