Megadeth - Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!

Megadeth's first album. Definitely my favorite! It keeps to amaze me the fact that their first album is so good, usually first albums are not necessarily bad, but not the best either. It amazes me even more the fact that they managed to record such a great album even after they spent half of their already limited budget in drugs/alcohol, I wonder what it would've been like if they didn't... but I guess we can see some of that on the remastered version, which I recommend over the "original" if you're looking for sound quality. This album enters my top 3 Megadeth albums right next to Countdown To Extinction and Youthanasia

1-Last Rites / Loved To Deth:  Dual track featuring a small bit of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor as "Last Rites",  probably the best they could choose to be the opening to a record like this. Slowly Last Rites morphs into Loved To Deth, which I read somewhere, is actually a love song "boy loves girl, girl doesn't love girl, boy kills girl", oh, isn't it so romantic? Specially the manic laughs at 4:38. Hah.

What I particularly like about this song, is Dave Mustaine's vocals, while they might not be everyone's cup of tea, to me it's like a magnificent roar

2- Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!: The song that gave name to the album. If you're looking for quality thrash metal, here you have it! This song gives me chills, the drum beat, plus that fast guitar, just makes you think of starting a mosh pit!

3- The Skull Beneath The Skin: This record starts with a deafening scream (which I'd like to point out, loses all seriousness when you realize it sounds kinda like he's saying "waffle")

This song is just perfect for headbanging, I envy those who had the opportunity to enjoy headbanging and moshing to it, back in the 80's!

Also, The Skull Beneath The Skin explains the birth of Vic Rattlehead, Megadeth's mascot, doing a reference to the 3 Wise Monkeys "See no evil, Hear no Evil, Speak no Evil"

"Metal caps his ears

He'll hear not what we say

Solid steel visor

Riveted cross his eyes

Iron staples close his jaws

So no one hears his cries

The skull beneath the skin

Now your drawn and quartered

Your bones will make the x

Symbol stands for poison"

4- This Boots: A cover they made of  Nancy Sinatra's This Boots Were Made For Walking. They figured it'd be cool including a cover in each album, but due to the change of lyrics, Lee Hazlewood (the guy who originally wrote the song) didn't like the cover much and he demanded them to remove it. They still kept it.

Megadeth: "You keep saying you got something for me, Something you call love, but I call sex, You've been kissing when you ought-to-be-a-screwing, And now someone else can kiss your ass"

Nancy: "You keep saying you've got something for me. Something you call love, but confess. You've been messin' where you shouldn't have been a messin', and now someone else is gettin' all your best."

This track starts with the sound of a radio changing stations, then a guitar intro leads to David Ellefson's awesome bass line to kick in. Personally, I like this cover better than the original. Megadeth took this song and made it theirs, which is not an easy thing to do.

5-Rattlehead: My favorite track of this record! It has so much power, and it's so fast and potent. Definitely the "dose of metal you need, to bang your head 'till you bleed". This songs always cheers me up.

Named like that because Dave Mustaine's mom used to tell him that if he kept headbanging like that he would "rattle something loose up there"

6-Chosen Ones: I listened to it a billion times today, it's one of those songs you just can't get tired of listening to.  Perfect song to listen to while you're doing something... like writing reviews about albums, chores, stuff, who knows?

7-Looking Down The Cross: The spooky beggining of the song followed by Mustaine's scream, once again are the perfect opening for a song with a much darker tone than the rest. Gives you the feeling that something's about to happen.

This track talks about what Jesus might have thought while being crucified, it's hinted that Jesus might have stopped himself from showing any kind of anger or hatred. Which is the reason why this song will never be played live again, being a born again christian, Dave Mustaine, the lead singer of Megadeth finds it inappropriate to play it, and he's right.  And again, I envy those who enjoyed it back in the 80s

8-Mechanix: My second favorite song off this album! And my favorite of the 3 versions you might find. There's The Mechanix recorded back the when Dave Mustaine was still in Metallica, which is absolutely slow, then there's The Four Horseman, you can't say it's a "version" of The Mechanix entirely, but it pretty much is, only has different lyrics, and it's a bit faster than The Mechanix (still slower than Mechanix) some people actually like The Four Horseman better because of the lyrics, that talk about the Apocalypse, but me? I stay with Mechanix's horny mechanic! And then you have Mechanix, the faster of the three, better recorded and more energic. This song is probably the faster on the album, and the one that justifies Megadeth's self proclaimed title of being "the world's state-of-the-art speed metal band"