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List Price: $9.93 | | Label: Capitol
Salesrank: 8891
Released: July 27, 2004 |
| Our Price: $6.10 |
| Used Price: $5.64 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? Track Listing:
1. Wake Up Dead
2. The Conjuring
3. Peace Sells
4. Devil's Island
5. Good Mourning / Black Friday
6. Bad Omen
7. I Ain't Superstitious
8. My Last Words
9. Wake Up Dead (Randy Burns Mix) - previously unreleased
10. The Conjuring (Randy Burns Mix) - previously unreleased
11. Peace Sells (Randy Burns Mix) - previously unreleased
12. Good Mourning / Black Friday (Randy Burns Mix) - previously unreleased
Editorial Review:
Megadeth, Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?
Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? Reviews:
This album rips so hard. 
2009-09-07 - This is one of those discs that gets better and better the more you listen to it. Undoubtedly, Megadeth were the most inventive speed metal band of the 80s. This album is filled to the brim with not only riffs galore, but individual guitar fills that add a unique flavor to these songs. This ain't just a typical boneheaded "chugga-chugga" album. This is heavy metal by a guy who has a firm grasp on what works musically. Of the three big thrash albums of '86, this one is by far the cathiest. Mustaine could have had a very lucrative career as a pop songwriter if he wanted, but I guess he'd rather tear people's faces off instead.
This is a quantum leap from their debut album (which ain't a shabby record, mind you) and it remained their best until 1990's Rust In Peace.
Up there with the best of 'em 
2009-07-10 - a great metal album.. one to go back and listen to from time to time...
92/100, Can it really get any better than this?
2009-07-06 - AUTHOR'S NOTE: I recently moved over to a new review system in which I rate each song and then create an average rating for the whole album rather than just giving the album a rating based purely on my general feel for the album. This allows for a much more accurate and unfortunately a much harsher rating for each album. Because of this my new number ratings may not match up with the star ratings on my older reviews when I updated them with this new review system. Thanks for your understanding.
Killing Is My Business...And Business Is Good! was absolutely stellar and still remains one of my favorites, but if anyone was going to top that it was going to be Dave. This leaves us with Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? The raw energy and spirit emitting from this thrash metal masterpiece is enough to give me the jitters. The vocals are great, they're filled with Mustaine's signature angry snarls that could scare a cougar and fueled by his genuine emotion and great lyrics. The rhythm guitar work is great, it's technical enough to qualify as lead work a lot of the time and is always extraordinarily catchy. Seriously, Dave comes up with some of the best riffs I've heard not only in thrash, but in the entire metal genre as a whole. The lead guitar is great as well, very technical and full of spirit, I really digs Chris Poland's style. Ellefson delivers some great bass work that is far more technical and creative than the majority of bass players in metal even to this day. Gar Samuelson gives us some very natural sounding yet still very technically proficient drumming, he was one of a kind and will always be remembered.
"Wake Up Dead"-A favorite among fans. It's a very technical song with one of Dave's best solos and an overall great way to start off the album. 9/10
"The Conjuring"-A very atmospheric song that soon turns into a crazy thrasher with some of the best riffing I've heard. 9.5/10
"Peace Sells"-The song everyone and their grandma knows. It's vast popularity even amongst the most hardened of metalheads should speak for itself. 9/10
"Devil's Island"-Definitely the weakest song on here not including "I Ain't Superstitious" but even then it's still a great thrash song. 8.5/10
"Good Mourning (Black Friday)"-An underrated masterpiece with outstanding guitar work and a fantastic atmosphere. 10/10
"Bad Omen"-Yet another stellar thrash song with great atmosphere to it, which is something all too rare in thrash. 9/10
"I Ain't Superstitious"-What was the point of this thing? I know it's a cover but even still it wasn't a good song to begin with. I always skip it and it brings this otherwise fantastic album down. Since it's a cover and I don't really consider it to be a genuine part of the album I won't count it in the average. 6/10
"My Last Words"-An absolutely amazing song with lots of emotion and feeling to it and some amazing riffs. A fantastic way to close the album. 9.5/10
Picking my favorite three songs on here was hard because they're all great, but here the one that I consider to be the best of the best: "Good Mourning (Black Friday)", "Bad Omen" and "My Last Words". If you can't appreciate the technical and emotional genius of those songs then there is something wrong with you. This is easily one of the best metal albums of all time, and my personal favorite.
A solid vitriol filled effort from the bands earlier period
2008-07-26 - I've had this album in one form or another since it came out in the 80's, so I've had plenty of time to listen to it, and I've come to this conclusion:
This is one of Megadeth's angriest and fastest albums, if Pantera defines heavy metal agression, Megadeth defines the heavy metal tantrum. The riffs are complex, the beats are fast, and the songs are hard and angry. Make no mistake though - this is a very technical group of songs played well by virtuoso musicians.
The writing isn't quite up to par with later work on "Rust in Peace" and "Symphony of Destruction" - there are no single songs that blow me away. All of the songs follow a similar pattern of building up from a slow intro more often then not into a thrash metal grind-fest. For that reason and others, many of the songs sound the same - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Megadeth found something that worked and they went with it. However, on later albums, Mustaine and his band branch out a bit more creating a more interesting result.
What you'll hear a lot more of on this album than others are thrash anthems, lots of grinding guitars, fast and nimble drumming, and a very angry Dave Mustaine. The intensity of the songs are almost overwhelming. This is the lineup of songs that would be the most likely of any in this groups catalog to whip mosh pits into a frenzy.
Right away, you can tell what the remastering is doing for this album. Not to take away anything from Menza/Friedman on later albums, but I'm convinced Gar Samuelson and Chris Poland are the most definitive lineup Megadeth has had, if not the most talented - so it's kind of a shame they had to break with those guys. (Chris Poland does play on "The System has Failed" released almost 20 years later and shows he still has his chops).
Below is a track by track rating for people who are interested in that sort of thing.
My scale - not approved by anyone....
1 = So offensively awful, my cd player practically vomits it
2 = Bad enough to skip over
3 = Good filler - works in the right mix
4 = I'll put the CD in to listen to this track
5 = I'll pull the record out of it's sleeve and bust out the cleaning solution to listen to this track
Title/BPM/Key
1) Wake up Dead(4)/162/E - Mostly instrumental, a grinding testament to the musicianship in the lineup used on this recording. The remaster gives the drums and the bass an emphasis that was sadly missing from the original, and the results rock!
2) The Conjuring(4)/??/E - Has a nice grinding jam in the break
3) Peace Sells(4)/138/E - Starts with the famous bassline that MTV still uses in it's ads today. Angry anti-establishment anthem. Ends with one of the more memorable chants - "Peace Sells... But Who's Buying....". Use to get pumped up for whatever....
4) Devils Island(3)/180/ - A little dated and hampered by Mustaine's pre-recovery vocals (ie. basically shouting and roughly in tune in places). Still has the grinding thrash guitars and some excellent drum-work.
5) Good Mourning/Black Friday(3)/186/E - Sort of a prog anthem. Starts with a slow dirge and slowly gains intensity until it reaches a climax of rapid fire drum hits to chants of "Black Friday"
6) Bad Omen(3)/240/E - Contains possibly the most technically challenging opening on the album with Ellefson and Poland playing fast scales in unison. The whole thing culminates in a super-fast grind in E with Poland basically running rough-shod over everything with his expert fretwork.
7) I Aint Superstitious(3)/156/F# - A 3/4 swing riff with the obligatory thrash break.
8) My Last Words(4)/270/D - I remember hearing this the year it came out on college radio (the only place you had a prayer of hearing this kind of music back in those days), so for me, it's probably the most memorable song on the album, the remaster really gets rid of the muddiness in the guitar that hampered the original mix, and what a huge difference it makes! Like other songs on the album, it starts with a slow guitar/bass duet, then morphs into a driving thrash beat that culminates into a call/response grind.
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The following bonus remixes were also included. Each one is worthwhile to listen to a slightly different version of the song, but overall doesn't really add much to the record. But - I'm never going to complain about getting more for my dollar, so with that said......
Seems like the approach taken on this remix songs was to maintain the gating etc on the drums, but beef up the low and high ends a bit. I prefer the original remasters, but these are also ok.
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Wake up Dead
The Conjuring
Peace Sells
Good Mourning/Black Friday
Yeah, the remastering/mixing sucks... but it's still their best
2008-06-11 - Megadeth at their raw, drugged out, punky and pissed off best. "Killing Is My Business..." is rawer, but a little too raw... the songs are there, just not as fleshed out and polished up as they needed to be for repeat listening. "So Far..." has some of the single best 'deth songs, but the duds kill it as an album. And the mighty "Rust" is a little too robotic and polished...
On "Peace", Dave was still drugged out and pissed off... the music may be metal, but the attitude is almost pure punk fury. The song "Peace Sells" almost serves as a single song definition of metal in the mid-'80s... who DOESN'T get an evil little smirk just hearing the opening bass line?
Worst feature... Chris Poland's guitar tone on leads. Yeah, it's a fat, screaming, liquid overdrive, but it's TOO much... coupled with his shaky (read: out of tune and off key at times) vibrato.... a Fender Twin overdriven THAT much should only be used by a pro that can HIT the note, HOLD the note, and VIBRATO that note between the proper pitches.... am I the only one who thinks some of his solo lines occasionally sound like the proverbial dying cat???
