10 Perfect Metal Albums With No Bad Songs

At the turn of the '00s, most music fans had a lot more to worry about than their inner angst half the time. Even though bands like Puddle of Mudd were tapping into something that was a lot more angry and adolescent, the fallout of 9/11 compounded with George Bush declaring war on Iraq left the United States in a state of dread wondering what would happen next. It was a tense time to be alive, and it took a couple of guys out of Los Angeles to hold a mirror up to the people in power.

While there's definitely a bit of an adjustment period listening to the metal of System of a Down, what they had to say on this record was far more potent than any other nu metal act coming out at the time. Looking to call out the harsh realities they were seeing everyday, tracks like Prison Song are practically their own political weapons, calling out the government for wrongly imprisoning people. Anyone can use sloganeering in their music, but System's approach was a lot more visceral, with Daron Malakian's guitars sounded like bricks of sound while also not being afraid to throw some joke songs in the mix as well like Bounce.

If anything, this album became more than a little bit prophetic about what goes on both in Hollywood and the big wigs down in Washington, from the struggle to find some sort of connection in the industry on Aerials to crying at the angels that deserve to die on Chop Suey. There was a lot of toxic behavior going around at the time, and the fact that these songs still hold up today just seems to remind us of how far we need to go.