Killing Is My Business...and Business Is Good! (Megadeth, 1985)

Not to long ago I spun up the three-song EP Symphony of Destruction, which included a "radio edit" (whatever that means - it's the same running time) of the hit song from Countdown to Extinction, plus two at-that-time unreleased songs. Not long after my blog post I had told a friend who got me into metal originally that I was patching the holes in my Megadeth collection, adding So Far So Good So What and Countdown to Extinction to my collection (and apparently addressing my aversion to the odd-numbered albums?). I added that I would have picked up Killing Is My Business, but that was maybe a bit too much to expect from the public library collections. He was outraged; in his opinion it was the purist and finest Megadeth album ever! Therefore, without even asking directly, this album was delivered to my virtual doorstep, and I finally listened to the "original" Megadeth.

I put the quotes around original because Megadeth had fairly rocky origins. When Dave Mustaine was booted from Metallica around 1982, he wasn't exactly in peak form to be leading a band of his own, especially in the vocals department. The initial concept involved borrowing a couple guys from Slayer to do a heavy end-run around his old band, but it was a lineup doomed from the get-go due to inevitable personality issues. For the non-metal inclined, this was about as ephemeral a lineup as the "Dirty Mac" featuring John Lennon and Mick Jagger that lasted all of one gig. Although Mustaine found his rock in bassist David Ellefson, the drummer and second guitarist roles were completely unstable, and ultimately filled by jazz fusion players Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland, who rounded out the first formal recording lineup of the band.

Now I've listened to the second album, Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?, for decades, featuring the same lineup, so there's been a substantial gap in time since I've heard anything else. My big takeaway is that this album is a far more low-budget affair. Even though Peace Sells also was born on an independent label (later adopted by Capitol), it shows off a more sophisticated production. Killing however is a more "pure" album, with virtually every track being bona fide speed metal. Unfortunately, thanks to the minimal production, where the music should rumble or gallop, it sort of chatters instead. Also Mustaine's voice hasn't quite fleshed out yet. Like his old bandmate James Hetfield, he's a guitarist first and singing was a learn-on-the-job experience. Eventually he would make his vocals and lyrics the focus of Megadeth, sort of a disservice for those of us who prefer emphasis on the instruments. Obviously that isn't the case here, with awesome (though tinny) solos and more-clever-than-Metallica riffs. Speaking of the Metallica connection, anyone with a copy of Kill 'Em All will recognize "Mechanix" as a rewrite of "The Four Horsemen", just sped up a notch and missing parts of the bridge. While Mustaine was co-credited on "Horsemen", he takes sole credit for "Mechanix" and I'll leave it to the lawyers to determine who wrote what and first. Even when it's not the same song, it's easy to see the similarities between this album and Metallica's first. Both are branches that are very close to the same trunk.

I think I've hammered through the "what happened next" part of the Megadeth story, but it is worth noting/repeating that Poland returned to the band about almost 20 years after being sacked following Peace Sells, but only in a session capacity, for The System Has Failed. Samuelson, who constantly battled substance abuse (as did Poland) and was also sacked after Peace Sells, died in 1999 from his addictions. As Dave Mustaine was hardly the paragon of clean living in the mid-1980's you have to wonder exactly to what epic level these guys were eating up the drugs to get fired!

As for this album's history after release, that makes for some good reading. Most of the drama centers around the creative cover version of the golden oldie "These Boots". Mustaine's addition of expletives and other racy content so outraged the original author that the song was pulled from the album to avoid a lawsuit. On the remastered edition (pictured here with smarter-looking artwork), the song was re-added (boosted the running time back over the half-hour mark!) but with all variant lyrics loudly bleeped out. For some reason this just seems to make the song even funnier, maybe because it really emphasizes there's some baaaaaad stuff being sung. My version has the uncensored version and frankly it's not that over the top. Not quite at the level of "unnecessary bleeping", but certainly not as vile as it was painted by its detractors. Nowadays it's a little hard to keep the genie stuffed in the bottle and interested listeners can readily compare versions from the world's favorite streaming video site. Needless to say, if you are going to invest in this album, make sure at least some version of "These Boots" shows up, otherwise it's like ponying up album prices for a six-song EP. I haven't heard the remastered version, so I'm not sure if the "chatter" issue was fixed. However I know from the remasters of later albums that the bass is probably turned way up, almost as if Dave was feeling guilty about his then-estrangement from David Ellefson.