Chop Suey!

"Chop Suey!" opens with a delicate acoustic figure that lasts about four seconds before the song detonates, and that whiplash is its entire operating principle. Daron Malakian's riffs are staccato, almost Armenian-folk in their scalar runs, and Rick Rubin's production keeps everything dry and forward so the tempo changes hit like hard cuts in a film. Serj Tankian's vocal is the wildest instrument here — barking the verses in a clipped, wired cadence, then swooping into an operatic wail for "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit," lifting a line from the crucifixion directly into a nu-metal single. Malakian's harmonized counter-vocals give the song a call-and-response derangement. The lyrics move from mundane self-care rituals ("wake up, grab a brush and put a little makeup") to a meditation on how society judges the manner of a person's death, particularly suicide — the original title was reportedly "Suicide," changed for radio. Released weeks before September 11, 2001, it was pulled from Clear Channel's advisory list and then became inescapable anyway. It remains the definitive gateway drug to System's catalog: absurd, sincere, and structurally reckless in a way almost nothing else on rock radio has managed since.