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Countdown To Extinction
In the period of time between Rust In Peace's tours and the recording of the next album, relations in Megadeth
fell apart. The band members saw as little of eachother as possible and when they did meet, the atmosphere seemed
slightly uncomfortable. It seemed like there might be a breakup for a while, but fortunately they decided to go
for mediation and group therapy and were soon able to enjoy being with eachother once again. Soon they were back
in the studio. This time Max Norman, whose only fault according to Dave is that he doesn't have red hair, came
in to produce the effort. This album was going to have to be the best yet; during the period of awkwardness within
the band, Metallica had released their s/t album which debuted at position number 1 in the U.S. and most of Europe.
In order to compete, it became necessary to create the "most uncompromising album ever." There were several ways
to do such a thing. The best way to do it was, obviously, to write great music; a skill which Megadeth fortunately
comes equipped with. The music had to be just right, and after the precise correct riffs had been chosen to fit
into each part of a song, they had to be recorded absloutely correctly, if not better than that. Any tiny mistake,
no matter how unnoticable, had to be redone until it could be done without a problem. Looking back on it, they say
that they went over the top to make sure that everything was right. But it worked; the album, as far as I myself
can tell, has no noticable faults. Although this album is slower than those which preceded it, it proved Megadeth's
versatility since they could make a slow album kick ass just like a fast one. Some of the lyrics were written to
be a bit easier to associate to, as well. They come from topics such as suicide, hunting, sky diving ( an unusual
topic, but good all the same ) the jail system and more. Between these four you've got several groups of many
people covered. All this hard work was eventually summed up by the release of the album Countdown To Extinction
on the 6th of July, 1992, and received a great reception -- 2nd place on the Billboard charts in America, 5th
place in the U.K. and 1st place in Japan. Even though Dave says he wasn't completely happy with those results
( he really wanted to get the number 1 place everywhere, since that was what Metallica's album had done ) having
to settle with what the band got couldn't have been too difficult either. An almost insane number of singles
were released for this album, starting with the Symphony Of Destruction single on June 15th, which got up to the
15th position on the Billboard. The others which were released over the following four months were; Foreclosure
Of A Dream, Sweating Bullets, and Skin O' My Teeth. As a special collector's item type of deal, the Megadeth Game
was released with the Skin O' My Teeth singles in England, mostly just so that the single would sell better
since people would buy four versions of it. Following this album, the band toured the world and America, and
Europe several times. With them during the European tour was Pantera, whose vocalist Phil has made a point
of talking trash about Dave Mustaine ever since, for some reason. Anyway, the second Megadeth video, 'Exposure
Of A Dream' was released in 1993 with the videos for Foreclosure Of A Dream, Symphony Of Destruction, Trent
Reznor's 'Gristle Mix' of Symphony Of Destruction and Go To Hell along with live footage of High Speed Dirt
and Skin O' My Teeth from 1992. And in Japan, a limited edition on 5,000 boxed set, "The Megabox," pictures
of which are ONLY AVAILIBLE HERE!!! Once again things were looking good for the band, and finally relations
between Megadeth and Metallica improved with a show on June 4th of 1993 when both bands preformed at a
festival in England at Milton Keynes Bowl. And so, as you can hear Dave mention in the recording of this
show, "Ten years of bullshit between Megadeth and Metallica are over." And although some people thought
it couldn't happen, both bands had survived through the years and ( at this point ) were still going strong.
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