Megadeth: Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? [CAPITOL]

Why you'll love it

This Capitol LP comes with a printed inner sleeve carrying the lyrics and credits, behind Ed Repka's famous Vic Rattlehead cover. The album appears in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and Martin Popoff's Top 500 Heavy Metal Albums of All Time.

This edition

• Printed lyrics and credits inner sleeve
• Ed Repka cover art
• Pressed in the USA

About the album

Megadeth started this one on Combat Records, and by the time it was finished Capitol had bought the rights and brought in Paul Lani to handle the final mix. That jump from indie to major says plenty about how fast Dave Mustaine's band was moving in 1986, and the music moves even faster.

Mustaine and producer Randy Burns built the album around riffs that twist and switch tempo without warning. "Wake Up Dead" opens at full sprint, "The Conjuring" goes dark and theatrical, and the title track, with David Ellefson's walking bass line up front, became the band's first music video. Side B pairs "Good Mourning / Black Friday" with "Bad Omen," throws in a thrash makeover of Willie Dixon's "I Ain't Superstitious" and closes with "My Last Words." Chris Poland's fluid leads and Gar Samuelson's drumming give it a loose, jazzy swing. Ed Repka painted the cover, with mascot Vic Rattlehead standing in front of a ruined United Nations headquarters.

It's widely counted as a thrash metal classic and helped push extreme metal toward the mainstream. Vic Rattlehead has been loitering outside that building for four decades now, and nobody has yet asked him to move along.

Also at Kops: more Megadeth on vinyl · browse Metal

Tracklist

Listen

On Capitol (cat# ST-12526), the 1986 album.