The first album I bought was Iron Maiden’s Powerslave but this was the first album to completely blow me away. Very few records I have heard since have come close to the buzz I got the first time I heard this … Pantera’s Vulgar Display Of Power is one, I guess it was another step up in intensity … and had a hell of a groove too … I’ve listened to heavier, more intense, more extreme music since and, now that my musical tastes have widened, there are other bands and records that have made me sit up and go “Wow!” but nothing that’s made me go “Whoah! … WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED!” like the first time I heard Rust In Peace or Vulgar Display …
Megadeth and Rust In Peace was the first step in my discovery that there is a lot of amazing music out there that noone hears or knows about (I know, by the time I got into them, Megadeth were a big band, certainly not underground and would probably even be considered mainstream by then … but I grew up in the countryside, pre-internet and they were different, cult and underground to me and my friends) so they were cool and unusual. Getting into music, or anything else for that matter, as a teenager is about identity, standing out from the crowd and rebellion. Megadeth did all these things for me … and the rebellion wasn’t just the usual sex, drink and drugs … it was revolution!
Rust in peace was also the first album I listened to that was political. I wasn’t politically aware before hearing it but something about the mixture of music and politics just clicked. … I wouldn’t say I am politically active, very much sleeping with the sleepers rather than acting with the activisits (as Billy Bragg once sang) but I do like music that makes me feel revolutionary. If Opus 1 turns out to have lyrics rather than instrumental I am sure they will be socio-political in nature … I may do a seperate blog entry about the mixing of pop and politics and what the use is (again as Billy Bragg once sang) …
I find now that most of the heavy metal and thrash music that guided me through my teenage and student years doesn’t move me at all now, (although I do still have the occasional Death Metal binge) but I do still have a big soft spot for Megadeth. Partly because I rememeber the “Whoah! WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED” the first time I heard Rust In Peace, partly because … and this is going to sound strange … they were also a little crap … the production of their early records wasn’t very good, or, as in the case of Rust In Peace the vocals are like Mickey Mouse on acid, or they were simply trying to hard to be their major (and better) rivals … but is the flaws that give a band and a record it’s soul … and that is what you fall in love with.
