Heavy metal has been through a tumultuous time in the last few decades. Before 1990, or thereabouts, you either wore spandex or denim, and you either liked Poison or Metallica. You only had two basic directions and everyone was happy. After that, grunge came along and wiped most of the slate clean, after which many metal musicians found themselves flipping burgers and waiting impatiently for MTV to start playing 80s metal again. Sadly for them, grunge begat alternative metal, which itself morphed into nu-metal, a hip hop-influenced variant which dominated the airwaves until 2002 or so.
But it wasn't all bad news. Although nu-metal quickly faded from view, a handful of completely different bands had slipped into the public consciousness simply because of the general open-mindedness of the metal scene at the time. The Los Angeles-based Armenian-American quartet System of a Down were more progressive, more confident and more head-scratchingly unlike any of their contemporaries, and quickly pulled in several nations' worth of fans with their self-titled debut album in 1998.
