{"id":645065,"date":"2026-10-29T18:08:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:08:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645065\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T18:08:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T18:08:11","slug":"system-of-a-downs-2001-what-made-it-a-defining-band-of-the-9-11-era","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/645065\/","title":{"rendered":"System of a Down’s 2001: What Made It a Defining Band of the 9-11 Era?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAs America was reeling from the unthinkable horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the No. 1 album in the country was a chaotic, incredulous and absolutely incendiary alt-metal LP \u2014 full of songs that protested war, questioned authority and insisted listeners wake up to the disorder surrounding them. System of a Down<\/a> didn\u2019t write or record Toxicity with 9\/11 or any of the events that followed in mind, but it became one of the timeliest soundtracks for the moment, as the Hollywood quartet of Armenian descent made the unlikely jump to stardom with its confrontational blend of crushing riffs, gorgeous harmonies, off-kilter humor and straight-faced politics.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tExplore\t\t<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

See latest videos, charts and news<\/p>\n

\n\tThis month on the Greatest Pop Stars<\/a> podcast, we\u2019ve returned with another mini-series spin-off of our usual Vintage Pop Stardom<\/a> series, titled Vintage Almost-Pop Stardom. All October, we\u2019ve been welcoming on some of our favorite guests (and one or two first-timers) to look at a quintet of really interesting artists during years in which they brushed against pop stardom, but perhaps never quite got all the way there (at least in this country). This week, we end the series with the brilliant Craig Jenkins<\/a> of Vulture talking about System of a Down\u2019s whirlwind 2001, where the band became controversial chart-toppers with music and rhetoric that was transfixing at the time, and has only gotten more resonant (and more popular) in the quarter-century sense.<\/p>\n

\n\tAlong the way, we answer all the most pressing questions about 2001 System: What circumstances allowed this thrashy, arty, explicitly challenging form of metal to get in the mix for the top of the Billboard charts? Did the band\u2019s combustibility \u2014\u00a0and the very different personalities of its four members \u2014 end up feeding its music? How much did the Clear Channel Memorandum actually affect the airplay of \u201cChop Suey\u201d? How do we feel about Serj Tankian\u2019s polarizing \u201cUnderstanding Oil\u201d essay and how he handled the blowback from it? Was it a big deal for Toxicity to be named SPIN\u2019s No. 1 album of 2001? And perhaps most importantly: Will the band ever record new music again?<\/p>\n

\n\tCheck it out above \u2014 along with a YouTube playlist of some of the most important moments from System of a Down\u2019s 2001, all of which are discussed in the podcast. And subscribe to the Greatest Pop Stars podcast<\/a> on Apple Music<\/a> or Spotify<\/a> (or wherever you get your podcasts<\/a>) for weekly discussions every Thursday about all things related to pop stardom!<\/p>\n

\n\tFind Craig\u2019s work at Vulture here<\/a>, and follow him at Bluesky here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tAnd finally, as we say in every one of these GPS podcast posts \u2014 if you have the time and money to spare, please consider donating to any of these causes in the fight for trans rights:<\/p>\n

\n\tTransgender Law Center<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tTrans Lifeline<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tDestination Tomorrow<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tGender-Affirming Care Fundraising on GoFundMe<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\tHuman Rights Campaign \u2013 In Your Area<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As America was reeling from the unthinkable horrors of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the No. 1 album…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[156,119511,157,111,139,69,49,119512],"class_list":["post-645065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-greatest-pop-stars-podcast","tag-music","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-vintage-pop-stardom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}