Megadeth: Killing is My Business...and Business is Good...

Megadeth: Killing is My Business...and Business is Good!

1985

Combat Records

Format I Own it On: Compact Disc & Vinyl

Track Listing: 1. Last Rites/Loved to Deth  2.  Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good!  3. Skull Beneath the Skin  4. Rattlehead  5. Chosen Ones  6. Looking Down the Cross  7.  Mechanix  8. Thses Boots  9. Last Rites/Loved to Deth (demo)  10. Mechanix (demo)  11. Skull Beneath the Skin (demo)



******(I know the whole point of my blog was to listen to my records in alphabetical order,  but I've had some requests to talk about Megadeth so I'm jumping ahead for a bit here.  I'll continue doing the alphabetical thing too but they'll be periodically interrupted by these Megadeth posts as I write them...Hello, Matt! Peeen-cil!) *****

The CD I have now looks like the one above...When I was growing up though it looked like this....



Or to be more specific it looked like this...

I have to say, I loooooove the original cover...I mean, I understand why the band would want to change it. It wasn't the cover they had originally envisioned, since the record company lost the original artwork and used a cheap replacement photo instead...I get it...But to me, it's unfair to have one of the big 4 of thrash have a cool cover for their debut...I mean look at this...



It's a terrible drawing! But it's very terrible-ness makes it awesome!




The cover of Slayer's debut album "Show No Mercy" is similarly awful, stiff drawing...But it really connects because it looks like something a teenage metalhead would draw on their high-school notebook in 1983...In that respect, it's a perfect album cover...




Y'know...this one is actually a pretty nice cover...But Metallica was always one step ahead of the other metal bands...To me, this would have been a good way to use the metalier-than-thou argument, "Yea, sure...Metallica has a nice professional-looking album cover, but it's too slick...I mean...it doesn't even have a monster on it!"

In my mind that's a valid argument.

(Oh yea, does it scare any other Metallica fans out there to see the words "Metallica" and "Monster" in the same sentence?)



("Wahhh...I feel like you're ignoring me..boo hoo..."You guys are supposed to be freakin' METAL for Chrissakes! Why don't you go to an S&M shop, buy some leather,  put a devil on your next album cover and try KICKING SOME ASS for a change...)

The text in the parenthesis above is a tangent....Ignore it if you like...

Anyway, I didn't invite you guys here to bust on Metallica (No matter how much fun that may be) but to talk about Megadeth's first album "Killing is My Business...and Business is Good!"

The current CD version sounds totally different than the old cassette I used to have....I've never seen a re-mix/re-master alter the sound of an album so much...Are we sure these are even the same recordings?! The "Killing is My Business" I grew up with was dark, murky and had totally unintelligible lyrics. This new release is crystal clear... I like the more clear music but I think half the fun was trying to decipher those lyrics...Every once in awhile you'd catch something super 13-year old metal badass like "A Dose of Meeetaaaal you Neeeeeed...." And your mind would race as to what other lyrical wonders were contained within the cheap, plastic tape shell...I liken it to a thrash-metal "Exile on Main Street" where its replay value derives from its inscrutability...




That said, If I could've heard the lyrics better and figured out that "Skull Beneath the Skin" contained the origin of Vic Rattlehead, my teenage head would have exploded! I thought that's what the song "Rattlehead" was...Holy Shit!

 I probably would like the new cover art if the Vic Rattlehead on the cover wasn't so big...I don't think the logo should obscure any of it, since it's almost the same color and the end result is kind of a clutter. If the cover was plain black and the Vic was below the logo, I think I might've been fine with it...

Oh, another warning, on the original version there was a foul-mouthed cover of "These Boots" (which you probably know from the Nancy Sinatra version) .but I guess Lee Hazelwood suddenly (a decade later) had a problem with the lyrics and forced them to remove the offending words. Megadeth's brilliant solution was to just put a long ear-destroying "BEEEEEEEEEEP"  over the words...I don't know why they just didn't mute the lyrics or put it on the album as an instrumental, hell...Hell, removing it entirely would have been a preferable choice...

Oh yea, I have a pretty good Megadeth related story...Well, it's probably not a good story...but what the hell...I'm going to tell it anyway...

ahem...

I first got this tape right around 1990-1991. . Back in the day it was possible to suddenly discover the existence of an album by one of your favorite band's that you didn't even know existed...Remember, there was no internet back then to look up a band's discography, so as far as I knew  "Peace Sells..." was the first Megadeth album. But someone told me about the existence of this first Megadeth album that was harder to find than the others. And not only did this person tell me about its existence but had a copy up for trade, so with no hesitation, I traded a couple of Maiden ep's for "Killing is My Business."  I was showing it to a couple of the other kids in Shop Class and one of them tells me, "That's nothing....I have an even older Megadeth album!"

I said "Oh yea? What's it called? "

"It's called Megadeth "Toxic Death!" He boasted.

This sounded suspicious to say the least. I mean, what a redundant title, but I called his bluff, "What do you want for it? I'll trade you anything..."

He made a big long list of demands, "The first two Metallica albums, your Megadeth backpatch, this Anthrax e.p. , blah blah blah..."

I agreed, knowing full well that he was bullshitting me, but I played along anyway...

For that following week I bothered him everyday, "Did you bring it? Did you bring it?!' knowing that he hadn't but anticipating the inevitable excuses...Everyday it was "No, I forgot it. No, I forgot it."

I kept this up until one morning I could tell he was tired of me bothering him.

I asked him "Hey, did you bring that Megadeth "Toxic Death" tape?"

"MegaDETH?!?!?!" he asked me incredulously. I thought you said "MegaDEPTH!"

I contemplated taking this even further and exclaiming, "MEGADEPTH?!?! Even better! I've been looking for the album "Toxic Death" by Megadepth for years!"

 But I decided he was off the hook...

Alright, enough of the old man memories...Let's hang out in Josh's room and listen to Megadeth's original uncensored version of  "These Boots."  God, I love youtube!  Enjoy...