SYSTEM OF A DOWN’S DUBIOUS PLACE IN HISTORY: WAKE-UP VIDEO
by Kyle Anderson in Music, Wake-Up Video

MTV.com
Sept 11 2009

It’s obvious that today will always be associated with the terrorist
attacks that occurred on this day in 2001. We’re nearly a decade
out and it still feels surreal, and the events of that day have been
memorialized so often that it sometimes seems like a trippy nightmare
or a scene from a terrible movie. It happened and was horrible, but
in the immediate wake of that day, there was about a three or four
week period where it really seemed like everybody banded together
and forgot about hostility for a while. In the scary silence that
followed the screeching of that day, there was a little bit of peace
and tranquility that was, unfortunately, fleeting. And as soon as that
quiet was cracked, down came the avalanche of animosity, conspiracy
theories, partisan bickering, international hate and general foulness
that hasn’t dissipated since. So on this anniversary, do yourself
a favor and take some time out to simply remain calm. Forget about
how much the government drives you nuts or why guys on cell phones
are jerks. Just take a deep breath and try to be slightly nicer to
somebody than you normally would. It’ll help you feel better, and
it’ll help out the rest of the universe in an incremental way.

Anyway, there are no shortage of pieces of musical trivia surrounding
September 11, 2001. Jay-Z’s The Blueprint came out that day, as did
P.O.D.’s Satellite, Ben Folds’ Rockin’ The Suburbs and Fabolous’
Ghetto Fabolous. The top song in the country was Jennifer Lopez’s
"I’m Real," and the top album in the United States was the supremely
weird art-metal masterpiece Toxicity by System of a Down. Once you’re
done with your moment of peace, enjoy some headbangingly delightful
Armenian hard rock.