This album review pontificates about Megadeth’s Peace Sells... but Who’s Buying?, the thrash record that outclasses its Metallica-lite reputation, as it turns 40 this month.
Genre: Thrash Metal, Hard Rock
Label: Capitol Records
Release Date: September 25, 1986
Vibe: 🤘💀
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Where are we, as a society that gets a ton of nostalgia mileage out of 80s rock/metal mainstays, at on Megadeth at this point?
Are they still mostly dismissed as Metallica-lite, a moniker that’s sort of accurate (I’ll get to that in a few minutes) but also more than a little lazy? Are they due for a reappraisal as a band with technical precision and a collection of towering riffs that rival any of their early thrash metal contemporaries? Or do they fall somewhere in the middle, due in part to the fact that they’re willing to trade a certain amount of surface polish to conjure up an air of genuine threat? That trade-off, at least in the beginning, pigeonholed them as forever the bridesmaid, standing in the shadows of records like Master of Puppets or …And Justice For All. “They’re not quite at the same level, but the potential’s there!” But 40 years after Peace Sells... but Who’s Buying?, we’re past the “potential” portion of the conversation, surely?
Megadeth’s story can’t be told without also going over Dave Mustaine’s rise-fall-rise-again origins in the heavy metal business. He joined Metallica in the early 1980s after responding to a newspaper ad published by the group’s drummer, Lars Ulrich. He would co-write four of the eight songs that would make it onto Kill ‘Em All, including “The Four Horsemen,” one of my favorites from that era of thrash, but his rampant substance abuse didn’t exactly engratiate him with the others making the record, which, when you’re the one going too far in a band that used to be nicknamed “Alcoholica,” you know you have a serious problem. There are several B-plots, such as a moment where James Hetfield kicked Mustaine’s dog, an act that kicked off a physical altercation between the two, but suffice it to say that Mustaine wore out his welcome pretty quickly. By April 1983, he was officially fired and on a Greyhound traveling from New York back to California.
En route to Los Angeles, Mustaine supposedly found a pamphlet by former senator Alan Cranston that read, in part: “The arsenal of megadeath can’t be rid no matter what the peace treaties come to.” The seed was planted, but it would take a while to pay off musically. Mustaine started another group, Fallen Angels, with a rotating cast of characters while working as a telemarketer (that visual, of him sitting in a pathetic office cubicle making anodyne small talk with strangers, is nothing short of hilarious). One name and several lineup changes later, the newly-minted Megadeth struck a (paltry) deal with indie label Combat Records to record and produce what eventually became their debut album, Killing Is My Business... and Business Is Good! And I do mean paltry, too. The band was given around $12,000 for the entire project, most of which was spent on drugs and booze. Still, the final result, as sleazy and unvarnished as it is, was an essential stepping stone for thrash metal to lift itself out of obscurity and carve out a spot as a legitimate heavy metal subgenre.
In his memoir, Mustaine was clear about the singular objective that fueled those early Megadeth records. “After getting fired from Metallica, all I remember is that I wanted blood. Theirs. I wanted to be faster and heavier than them.” For the follow-up, which he and his bandmates started writing almost as soon as their debut LP was finished, he wanted everything to go even faster. In a December 1985 interview with Metal Forces, he described several songs, “Bad Omen” among them, as a “total blur.” He and bassist David Ellefson also stated publicly multiple times that they wanted to change metal’s perception in the consumer marketplace by writing more socially conscious lyrics. I don’t know if they succeeded on that level as much as some of their other rock contemporaries, but the vivid nature of the storytelling, not to mention how it melds with the frenetic instrumentals, is definitely a step up from their previous outing. From the ugliness of the penal colony on “Devil’s Island” to the occult-curious “The Conjuring” and “Bad Omen,” you can’t accuse Mustaine and company of playing it safe in any way.
The high-octane aspect of Peace Sells is worth the price of admission on its own, particularly when it comes to the dueling guitarists at its center. Mustaine and Chris Poland’s attack is much sleeker and more pointed this time around, technical growth that’s especially audible in the first 15 minutes of this tracklist. Opener “Wake Up Dead” was the first single and their most direct statement of intent, while the ever-popular title track benefits immensely from Ellefson’s mammoth bassline, grounding the raging riffs with a stomp-worthy thump that’s Sex Pistols-esque in its guttural energy. The latter was also the first music video Megadeth graced MTV’s airwaves with, one that features a kid in a Slayer T-shirt telling his father that the live performance footage, intermingled with war montages, “is the news” when the older man tries to change the channel. When youngsters today ask what being a Gen Xer was like, that moment will be one I point to.
Jokes aside, the importance of the “Peace Sells” video even existing in the first place can’t be overstated. It represented another win for the underground thrash movement, as it slowly but surely infiltrated mainstream television. The video was also an MTV mainstay long before Megadeth clawed back consistent radio airplay, so it was the delivery system that got them in touch with a much wider audience (sometimes, broadcasting channels pick the pop culture artifacts that matter in spite of the dodo birds programming them). The band got even more free publicity by way of televangelist Bob Larson, who built a career on being the guy who was warning parents about heavy metal’s penchant for Satanic messaging. As it turns out, moral panics are extremely good for driving sales. Also, if you want pure speed, “My Last Words” closes things out at a tempo that leaves you almost no room to breathe. Incidentally, Lars Ulrich, the guy who helped fire Mustaine from Metallica, has named it his favorite Megadeth song.
Peace Sells entered the Billboard 200 at No. 76 in 1986, a modest beginning for an album whose reputation would only grow in the months that followed. It held on through steady touring and word of mouth, closing out 1987 at number 92 on the year-end chart. The RIAA eventually certified it Platinum, and it didn’t take long before it hit the same milestone north of the border, too. In the years since its release, Megadeth’s fortunes have gone through their fair share of peaks and valleys. Rust in Peace and Countdown to Extinction round out the band’s peak run of good-to-great records, while the 21st century has yielded much more uneven results. But, to tie it back to Mustaine’s former employers, it’s not unlike Metallica’s trajectory, either. Megadeth’s best material can more than compete with the likes of Load or Reload, never mind anything Metallica dropped from St. Anger onward. Have Mustaine and company built the same kind of rabid fanbase? If you’re talking sheer numbers, probably not. But if you take into consideration how long they’ve stuck around, especially given how quickly they were written off by some early on, it’s not as wayward a comparison as you might think.
Is there a best-ever Megadeth song? What is it? Add it to the comments below.