After two decades of being rejected from the metal genre, System of a Down is getting more love these days. At the beginning of their career, the band had this misfortune to be lumped together with that short-lived 90’s fad “nu metal” (System of a Down never accepted the label, though). System of a Down continued to have a contentious relationship with genre, but especially with metal. Metal fans lambasted System of a Down for being paradoxically too commercial and too weird, too political and too silly. ((If you don’t believe me, check out this thread from Encyclopedia Metallum.)) But more recently, the band seems to be getting more favorable treatment, placing well on several lists of “best metal of the 21st century” and that sort of thing.

This could be because people who were growing up when System was popular (like myself) are now in their late 20s and early 30s and working their way into rock journalism jobs. Another factor could be their enduring success as one of the heaviest bands to continue to sell out stadiums. I mean, how many other metal(ish) bands can successfully attract a headline spot and an devoted crowd at a major festival like Download when they haven’t released an album in more than a decade?

But it’s also because their music actually has a fair amount of metal in it. Continue reading