Showing results by author "Serj Tankian" in All Categories

Serj Tankian will be the first to admit that his band, System of a Down, was “unlikely a chart-topper as had ever existed in modern music history: a band of Armenian-Americans playing a practically unclassifiable clash of wildly aggressive metal riffs, unconventional tempo-twisting rhythms, and Armenian folk melodies, with me alternately growling, screaming, and crooning lyrics that could pivot from avant-garde silliness to raging socio-political rants in the space of a single line.” After all, as Serj concedes, “it’s not easy listening.”

Like System of a Down's multi-platinum-selling second album, Toxicity - hailed by Rolling Stone as "a bouquet of smart rock and ardent social argument" and by SPIN as "the sound of now" - Tankian's poetic style is willfully eclectic. Sometimes introspective, sometimes direct and cutting, these poems deal with subjects as wide-ranging as euthanasia and the nature of time itself.