The latest issue of Metal Hammer features a recap of the greatest Metal songs of the past 21 years.
To make this list as “fair” as possible, the magazine team called on a large panel of writers, musicians and readers. And despite the strong competition from Slipknot, Ghost, Trivium and Deftones, the winner is … System Of A Down avec Chop Suey!.
That’s right. The 2001 System classic won the poll. This song has been viewed over a billion times on YouTube, listened to over 600 million times on Spotify and is one of the few songs that brings Metal fans all over the world together.
Here are 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about Chop Suey! [via LouderSound.com].
The song was written in the back of a motorhome
Modern Metal’s greatest song originated in the back of a motorhome driving along a long-forgotten American highway, between tour stops for System’s debut album. Guitarist Daron said:
I was hanging out by myself on a bed in the back. There was an acoustic guitar that I used to take with me. I started playing this acoustic guitar, and that’s when I started writing Chop Suey!
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The lyrics of the song were completely different at the beginning
According to Daron, the opening lines of the song were completely different from the ones everyone knows:
Tell me/Tell me what you think about tomorrow/Is there gonna be a pain and sorrow/Tell me what you think about the people/Is there gonna be another sequel?
System frontman Serj Tankian changed the song’s opening lines, turning them into one of the most memorable hooks of all time:
Wake up/Grab a brush and put a little make-up.
She also had a different title
Chop Suey! was originally called Suicide, after its key line: “I don’t think you / Trust in my self-righteous suicide.”. Daron explained:
It occurred to me how much we judge people, even in death. If someone were to die in a car accident, you would say, “Oh, poor man”. But if he had died in a car crash while drunk, it would change your whole perception of how he died, and you would judge his death in a different way. For some reason, this thought struck me as strange. I had probably smoked too much weed or something …
Daron worked closely with producer Rick Rubin on the song and album
Rick Rubin had directed System’s self-titled debut album, but Daron felt more confident in his studio abilities the second time around.
I co-produced [le deuxième album] Toxicity with Rick. It was my first time participating in the group as a producer, and not just as a songwriter. I learned a lot from Rick. Not necessarily technical things. Rick is not a very technical guy in the studio, he’s more of a judge. And he’s a tough judge – if he likes something, he will like it. But if something isn’t great, it will let you know.
The band was not forced to change the title from Suicide to Chop Suey!
Popular wisdom has it that the label forced the band to change the original title of the song Suicide for fear that the radio would not broadcast it. Daron explained:
This is not true. No one put pressure on us. We were like: “This is our first single from the album, do we want to give the radio a reason not to broadcast it?”.
They had a replacement title ready: Chop Suey !. It’s partly a pun – “suicide” cut in half – and partly a nod to the old black-and-white gangster movies Daron watched as a child.
It was something they were like: “We’re going to make a chop suey!”. It meant: “We’re going to kill him”. It had to do with all these murder stories.
The video was filmed in the courtyard of a hotel Daron and Shavo remembered from their childhood
The memorable video for the song was filmed in the backyard of the Oak Tree Inn in Hollywood, near the neighborhood where Daron and bassist Shavo Odadjian grew up. Daron said:
In the early 1980s, the entire Sunset Strip was steeped in prostitution, and this hotel was full of prostitutes. There was a supermarket across the street where all Armenians used to go. We would go there with our parents and we would see all the prostitutes across the street. When we made this video, Shavo said, “I think we should do it in this seedy hotel”.
Daron’s tattoos in the video? They are not real.
In the video Chop Suey !, Daron wears a series of strikingly ornate tattoos on his chest. Except they weren’t real.
I just wanted to do something that looked cool – there was no message behind it. It took me a long time, all this body painting. All the effort I put into it… I really wouldn’t do anything like that right now.
The song was banned by radio the day after September 11 … or not?
Chop Suey! was on a list of songs “with questionable lyrics” sent by American media giant Clear Channel to its 1,100 radio stations after the Twin Towers attacks, because of its reference to suicide and the phrase “I cry when angels deserve to die ”. Daron explained:
In music, it is a badge of honor. So many big rock bands have been banned. It’s almost like you’re not one of the coolest bands if you don’t get banned once or twice. I think that made the song more popular.
Except that Chop Suey! has never been officially banned. The list was purely advisory. And that certainly didn’t stop the song from reaching No. 12 on Billboard Rock and Metal.
9/11 conspirators jumped at the chance
In the wake of the Al-Qaeda attacks, the Internet peacekeepers’ brigade focused on the song’s phrase mentioning “moralizing suicide”. In their feverish imaginations, System Of A Down had predicted what was to come. Daron said:
Our fans were starting to say, “Hey, these guys are prophets, they’re saying things that haven’t happened yet.” “Self-righteous suicide”, “Aerials in the sky” [de Toxicity], “Jet Pilot”. I was, like, “Wow, it’s cool that they think that. Let them believe that we really predicted it ”.
She’s more popular than any other Metal song
Today, Chop Suey! is System Of Down’s most famous song, and a benchmark of 21st century Metal. His 600 million streams on Spotify are bigger than any single from Metallica and bigger than the two most popular Slipknot songs put together. Last year it surpassed one billion views on YouTube – the first Metal song to exceed that number (unless you count Linkin Park’s In The End). Daron said:
I’m proud that what we did still stands the test of time and that people still identify with it. It’s funny that that little song that I spent so little time on in the back of a pickup truck has turned into something people consider a classic. It’s special for me.
System Of A Down – Chop Suey! :
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