On this day, September 4, 2001, System of a Down released Toxicity.
And now, twenty-five years later, it remains one of those rare albums that seems almost impossible to place neatly inside a genre.
It was metal, certainly, but also punk, alternative rock, progressive music, Armenian folk influences and sheer musical madness. It was aggressive without being predictable, political without sacrificing melody, and strange enough to sound unlike almost anything else on mainstream radio.
Even today, Toxicity is frequently placed among the defining metal records of the 2000s, and several sources have recently ranked it as System of a Down’s finest album, describing it as one of the most essential releases in metal history.
The band had already built a loyal following with their 1998 debut, but Toxicity was the moment everything changed.
System of a Down entered the Cello Studios in Hollywood with producer Rick Rubin carrying an enormous amount of material with them. They had written more than 40 songs and eventually recorded more than 30.
Only 14 would make the final album.
That excess was part of the method.
Rick Rubin believed that writing far more material than necessary allowed the band to choose only its strongest songs. And some of the tracks left off Toxicity would eventually become Steal This Album! in 2002, after unfinished material leaked online.
The recording sessions were not exactly peaceful. There were tensions between the four musicians, arguments and even a physical confrontation that left members needing medical attention. Yet that friction also became part of the creative chemistry of the record.
Daron Malakian was particularly prolific, while Serj Tankian pushed his voice into increasingly unusual territory. At one point, the latter reportedly even sang inside a tent set up in the studio to achieve a particular sound.
Then came the title track. Interestingly, “Toxicity” was almost left behind during the writing process.
Shavo Odadjian had originally called the idea “Version 7.0”, inspired by the software versions of the time. Daron later reworked the song, and the track eventually became the centrepiece of the album.
And then there was “Chop Suey!”. Released as the first single before the album, it was already becoming a phenomenon when history suddenly intervened. Toxicity arrived just one week before the September 11 attacks. In the aftermath, Clear Channel circulated a list of songs considered inappropriate for radio, and “Chop Suey!” was among them, largely because of its references to suicide. It was not formally banned nationwide, but stations were advised against playing it.
The timing was extraordinary.
An album filled with political and social anxiety had arrived just as the United States was entering an entirely different era. Serj Tankian’s outspoken political views would soon create further controversy, but the record itself refused to disappear.
Instead, it debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, selling around 220,000 copies in its first week.
There was even chaos before the album officially came out.
A free System of a Down launch concert planned in Hollywood on September 3 attracted a crowd far larger than expected. The event was cancelled for safety reasons, and the resulting disorder turned into a riot.
For a band on the verge of becoming enormous, it was perhaps the most chaotic possible introduction to superstardom.
Yet beneath all the noise, Toxicity was also remarkably sophisticated. “Prison Song” attacked America’s prison system and the relationship between drugs and incarceration. “Deer Dance” dealt with political violence and protest. “ATWA” took inspiration from Charles Manson’s environmental ideas — an uncomfortable and deliberately provocative choice — while the title track examined alienation and the strange toxicity of modern Los Angeles.
And the final surprise comes at the very end.
The mysterious hidden track commonly known as “Arto” is not actually an original System of a Down composition. Daron Malakian recently clarified that it is “Der Voghormia” (“Lord Have Mercy”), a traditional Armenian spiritual hymn, performed with Armenian-American musician Arto Tunçboyacıyan. The song’s connection to Armenian history gives the album’s closing moments an even deeper cultural meaning.
Either way, twenty-five years later, Toxicity still sounds remarkably alive.
That may be its greatest achievement. Many records associated with the nu-metal explosion of the early 2000s now feel firmly tied to their era.
Toxicity does not.
It still sounds furious, unpredictable, melodic, political and slightly unhinged.
And perhaps that is why, a quarter of a century later, System of a Down’s masterpiece remains not simply an album from 2001, but one of the defining metal records of its generation.
With contributions from Fabrizio / Psycho Music:
Images from web – Google Research