"Risk" vs "Super Collider"
Metal Sucks podcast recently asked Megadeth bassist Dave Ellefson to tell them which of the band's most controversial albums he preferred & why. This is how he responded:
DAVE ELLEFSON: "It's funny. The 'Risk' songs worked great acoustically. These really simple singer-songwriter kind of songs almost. 'Super Collider' has a lot of really heavy stuff on it. It's definitely a much heavier record. I think with 'Super Collider', the setup and the launch of that record, I think, is what really polarized that album with the fans. Had we led with kind of the traditional format, which is you come out with a heavy track and then you move to the single — if we had come out with 'Kingmaker' and then moved to 'Super Collider', that record would have been received completely different. Because first impressions are lasting impressions. There was this big wait — Megadeth were doing the 'Big Four'; we did all this big stuff, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax tours again; we're back on top as this real thrash band; and then, all of a sudden, the next song people hear from us is the 'Super Collider' track. It was, like, 'Woah! What the hell happened?' And 'Super Collider' is a perfectly fine song, if it was the second song you heard. But to come out of the gate swinging with something like 'Kingmaker' would have set an entirely different precedent. So it's amazing how you can skew public opinion by what you see and hear first. I think 'Super Collider', there's a lot of heavy tracks on it; there's a lot of pretty crushing material on that one. So I'm probably a bigger fan, overall, of the 'Super Collider' album. When I hear it now, I remember, I go, 'That had some pretty freakin' crushing stuff on it.'"
Back in 2013, Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine had this to say about the reaction to 'Super Collider' in some interviews with Ultimate Guitar & Loudwire:
DAVE MUSTAINE: "Fans who didn't like "Super Collider" are people that wanna hear 'Black Friday' the rest of their lives. And I feel for them, man. I know the first time I heard AC/DC versus what they put out now, it's a different time. I think that's the whole thing about if you're really a fan of the band, you grow with them or you stop being a fan. I always loved early AC/DC and I totally respect older AC/DC, but I was weaned on Bon Scott."
"Super Collider" title track was actually written several years before the album's recording sessions. The majority of the riffs in the track 'Super Collider', it's a very simple song, there's not a lot of stuff there. It was a file I had saved from several years before. I restructured the song a little bit and added a part to it and that's how the song ended up being. It was just one of those songs that had a vibe to it. It wasn't even that it was simple. After we finished 'Super Collider', people were saying, 'Wow, it sounds like The Who's 'Baba O'Riley'; it sounds like AC/DC's 'Highway to Hell'; sounds like Van Halen's 'Running With The Devil'.' And I was like, 'Well, those songs don't suck.'"
Personally I think there's a world of difference between the two albums from a quality point of view & I agree with Ellefson to an extent. 'Risk' was an absolute abomination. It represents the clear weak point of the Megadeth back catalogue & is the only one of their albums that isn't regarded as a legitimate metal release. The band clearly didn't have a clue what they were doing with that one & were in a very bad place creatively. 'Super Collider' on the other hand is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me & I think the reason I'm able to view it that way is because I didn't come to it from a position of context even though it was at the time of release. I'd skipped Megadeth completely since 1994's "Youthanasia" but decided to go back & explore what I'd missed just before the release of 'Super Collider' & therefore I was able to take each record for what it was rather than what it represented in the metal climate at the time. And when you look at 'Super Collider' as a record & don't try to make it into something it's not, it's actually not too bad. The production & performances are excellent & there is some very catchy song-writing there too. Sure it's never going to sit amongst the top half of Megadeth's prestigious discography but I don't think it deserves to sit at the bottom either. In fact, I prefer it to three or four of the other post-'Youthanasia" albums. What are your thoughts?
