Mezmerize/Hypnotize

Everybody brought their helmets? Ok, here's the dooziest of doozies in my album collection: 

I can't count all the times i haven't reviewed System Of A Down's Mezmerize/Hypnotize. At least once in every major story arc, but probably more than that. How do you review it? How, Skip, how? It's worse than Year of the Black Rainbow or Automata. They hate LA, they hate war, they hate right-wing 'Merica, they hate the genocide of their people, and rightfully so on all those counts. 

On the other hand, they are like one of the biggest illusion bands ever. I don't mean they are fake or worthy of derision, i just mean that their decade and a half of inactivity is purely about money and "creative differences." They still play big shows, they all want to make more music, just not each others' music, and they can't agree on how to pay each other. That all sounds suspiciously like they aren't actually friends anymore, more like childish grown ups knife fighting near the tire swing, but what do i know? 

There is awesome stuff on these last two albums, but there is also pointless silliness. I'm all for silly, if there's a point. I guess one part of the problem is that while listening to them, i often start to wonder why they bothered. These things are surprisingly short, but also surprisingly fragmented and the kind of unfinished i would normally reserve for a critique of Paul McCartney's less than thorough audio efforts. That's my question, why bother? 

The answer is that they still care. They don't want to put out crap just to sell albums, but they also don't want to walk away. Believe it or not, that's the same situation as Metallica, and Sir Paul himself (though he was always happy to put out garbage albums, so whatever). Welcome to Corporate America, you own a brand. As a way of life, i think we all know that's a pretty meaningless version. That's reality, you can't be both a real person and a fictional celebrity at the same time. 

Why don't presidents fight the war? Why are all these complicated geo-political power dynamics harassing me when i'm just sitting in my car waiting for my girl? Why do we keep living in this violent pornography? Penis penis penis penis vagina, that's a song, right? Remember those shiny happy people in that REM song? Were Tibetans protesting because protesting is fashionable? Do i have to go find and reread my copy of Collingwood's The Idea of History? I could, i know roughly where it is in the attic, but let's just bumble forward all willy-nilly like i'm wont to do. 

Things that happened aren't History, with a capitalized but not manditorally aspirate H (you can glottal stop if you want to, according to Men Without Hats). No, History is what you tell yourself it was like to live through those events, a self examination of situational empathy. That could go well, or not well at all, but in the end your version of the story is only as good as your ability to be a functional human with an imagination. I'm sure he had more subtle and nuanced points than that, but i am Bottle, hear me apologetically paraphrase. 

The political history of China and Tibet is not my forte, so it goes right in the folder with Ireland. What i can tell you, is i generally tend to think that the people who decided to kill a bunch of other people are guilty of some form of being wrong, whence my tendency to dad-declare that you're both wrong, go somewhere else so i don't have to listen to it anymore. 

Speaking of getting off my lawn, the upside to all of this is that they are fairly honest albums. By that i mean, they don't have that passive aggressive delusion that everything would be great if it weren't for all the terrible other people ruining my master plan. Instead, it's more like look, this is garbage, sure, but the parts i really do like wouldn't exist either, so i can't exactly say flush it all down the toilet. Am i alone in here? Yep, wish i hadn't heroined up those hypodermics after all. Help. 

If we look at the band as a group of people who really don't want to be a cult, then i get it. Too bad being a big headliningly famous brand is its own kind of cult. 

So maybe we listen to it as grown ups pointing out that they are still children. No, i mean that's part of it, but not the whole shebang. For starters, we have this unspoken dark mysticism thing lurking under the surface. Something about the corporate social machine is fundamentally wrong, but all you can do is pop the largest couple zits and be depressed. 

Maybe we try a completely new thing. We tried fighting the diseased programming of centuries, but that just brought even worse people out into the melee. Tucker Carlson thinks he's a Liberal who gets mad sometimes. Maybe that's true, he's certainly insane enough to plausibly be that deluded. It's interesting to remember that today's Republican party is the offshoot of the Democratic-Republican Party, that's why they constantly foget that they agree about 85% of the time. The Democrat side at least once in a while points out that there's millions of people who totally don't agree with either of them. RINO is one of those terms like sheeple where the people who use it the most are tragic victims of their own dramatic irony. It's funny how people who vociferously proclaim liberty so often hide behind the liabilty shelter of incorporation and pray for a dictator when their beloved free market chooses to get rid of them. Most people want more wind and solar energy, but somehow that's unfair to the guys who profit from oil we don't want to buy or burn anymore? You do realize that "the free market" and "the tyranny of the majority" are structurally the same thing, right? No? You didn't? Well, they are. Market economics is literally the tyranny of the majority. 

The guys in SOAD have net worths around 20 million, but i've tried to explain why that's meaningless in a variety of ways. All that means is that that would be Serj or Daron's initial asking price if they were willing to sell you all their assets (cars, houses, song rights, musical instruments, etc.).  What do any of them actually do in day to day life? Practice? Make phone calls? Speak at fundraiser dinners? Buy more hockey jerseys? 

What was even my point? Have we even listened to it yet? Crap, no we haven't. Better do that. 

Funny story, i apparently had the discs switched. Let's try that again, shall we. 

Welcome to the soldier side (life is war, in case you didn't get that memo). Oh, wow, i haven't listened to it in a while, and i forgot how great it starts out. It sounds amazing. It's ridiculous, and laugh out loud crazy, but the vocal equality of Serj and Daron is amazing. Serj is Serj (amazing), but Daron as an equal duet partner raises it to a whole new level. There are a few moments of "yes, we totally know the lyrics don't make sense," but the contextualization helps some. They tend to be representations of insane, erratic behavior. It helps if you remember that each song is about one thing, each exists inside a metaphor. Sometimes that metaphor is explicit, sometimes it's a philosophical perspective. 

In the thank you section, Daron puts a Charles Manson quote. I get it, but that doesn't change the fact that i had to turn my hand upside down and press my thumb against my left eyeball. I assume you have some understanding of the complex meaning of that weird human body language. 

I forgot how amazing the choruses are. These are mostly pop songs, by the way. Amazing dropped-c (i think, i didn't look it up to verify) riffs, exotic melodies. Also, these are proper half-hour albums. Daron really did play in a celebrity baseball game with Tony Danza and Frankie Avalon. And, actually that gets us to the real heart of what's going on. This is Ststem Of A Down, you know, Armenian-Americans playing alternative metal about how America is so totally a nonsense coked-up Fascist country, and freakin' proud of it for some insane reason (it's probably the cocaine talking). 

You could write an 800 page book just trying to contextualize these two albums. Early Offspring level irony, deep socio-political criticism. Actually, i bet i know the real secret: you can't do anything else after something like this. It's literally everything. I know that feeling. Hell, we're going through the last few interesting things i couldn't figure out how to weave into my two books about albums. This is literally all of them. 

The middle of Hypnotize (the second of the pair) is where it all starts to go haywire for me. The title track is amazing, big hit, already referenced. It points out the sheer insanity of trying to reconcile actual reality with the ponderous weight of the political world even Atlas couldn't shoulder. 

It's all an anti TV statement. More specifically, there's the reality you walk around in, and the reality TV tells you you didn't notice while you were foolishly out walking around. 

From track 6 on, i lose it. I can't keep it all straight. It's wonderful, but i can't hold it all in my head. You win, guys. You broke me. 2020 15 years ahead of schedule. Ok Computer and Steppenwolf's Monster are the only more prescient albums i can think of at the moment. 

Actually, i've never tried to listen to the second album all by itself. Maybe remind me to try it in a couple months. As it stands though, i'm at Holy Mountains and i'm done. I can't hold any more. It's a bit like Meatloaf's Bat Out Of Hell in that it's just too much, but it's totally different in the sense that i can't turn it off. I wish i could, Vicinity of Obscenity is just too goddamed much. Thumb in eyeball again. Absolutely insane, and completely terrifying. 

As a listening experience, this is comparable to Ok Computer, The Black Parade, and The Downward Spiral. It has a lot more intentional humor, certainly, but it's all-consumingly intense, not least because Soldier Side is the absolute loudest thing on the entire album, possibly the universe, i think the whole thing is actually supposed to give you brain damage. 

In fact, listening to these two albums in their entirety might actually be the opposite of cathartic. I love 'em, but wowzers that's a struggle and a half of an art experience.