My Top 10 Favorite Megadeth Songs (revised)
I was checking out a list on Whiplash of Early Man Mike Conte’s top 10 Best Metallica Songs. It’s a good list of old Metallica songs that I could agree with, but it’s hard to pick only ten songs from Metallica, even on their first three album. With the new Megadeth album coming some time this year, I’ve honestly been thinking about what top 10 songs would I pick from Megadeth. So… here goes;
- Peace Sells…: This is a given. It was one of the first Megadeth songs that I heard and I just couldn’t get enough after that.
- Holy Wars: Amazing lyrics, intro and solos.
- Hook In Mouth: Shamefully, I really didn’t like this song the first time I heard it. These days I play it very often.
- Good Mourning Black Friday: Megadeth during this era were the kings of the build-up riffs. Good Mourning leads into a ferociously good time with lyrics of serial killers bloody rampage. “A merciless butcher that lives under ground, I’m out to destroy and will cut you down”
- Devils Island: The legendary penal colony off the coast of France. What’s not to love about that? The solos and lyrics are vivid and give you a great mental picture of the song.
- Darkest Hour: Can you argue with this, besides maybe that it should be much higher on the list?
- Mechanix: The mustaine version of The Four Horsemen. The beat is slightly different, but both songs are classics.
- Looking Down The Cross: The opening lead riff coupled in with the bass line and the song morphs into a masterpiece.
- Wake Up Dead: From beginning to end, every solo and riff in this song give me a throbbing boner, there’s no other way to explain it. At 2:37 when it goes in to the hauntingly cool bridge, THAT’S my favorite part of the song!
- Diadems: There is just a great feel to this song. The creepy opening rhythm and the build up to full speed is just superb. “This one ain’t over ’til the fat-lady-dies!”
Honestly I just rattled those out in less than a minute. Those are the first ones that come to mind. I could probably list 10 more if I wanted to. Sadly I unintentionally excluded any songs from anything after Rust In Peace, with the exception of Diadems, which was on the Tales From The Crypt Demon Knight soundtrack. It doesn’t mean that I don’t like anything later that R.I.P. It just means that I obviously favor the older albums.
What do you got?
Eh, I’m a little weird in the sense of I’m one of a select few people on the planet that actually enjoyed some of the tracks on Youthanasia. The album was pretty bland, and a lot of the tracks sounded the same, but it had its highpoints. Having said that, my top ten…
1. Peace Sells…
2. Devil’s Island
3. Killing Is My Business
4. Holy Wars
5. Hook In Mouth
6. Mechanix
7. The Scorpion
8. Wake Up Dead
9. Addicted To Chaos
10. New World Order
I had to revise this and add my reasoning for each favorite.
Youthanasia was the first music I heard after Marine Corps basic training. Three months of no metal and the first chance I got, I went to the nearest store, bought a portable cd player and Youthanasia and I spent the next day listening to that. It was cool and I loved it then. I still listen to it, just not as much. Cryptic Writings does very little for me with the exceptions of a few songs. I still have the cool little Vic Rattlehead trading card that came with it.
The Scorpion is probably may favorite from The System…
I was but a wee lad when Youthanasia was released, but that album really grew on me a year or two ago. I find the second half to be a little weaker, but it did pick up in parts after that. New World Order was a wicked bonus track, I quite like it. Absolution was awesome too. Nice personal connexion to the album, that’s a pretty cool story.
Yeah, I don’t even really remember Cryptic Writings (rare for a Megadeth album), but to be fair, I probably only heard it a couple times.