Megadeth - Killing Is My Business... And Business Is Good!

Don’t get the 2002 remaster of Megadeth’s Killing Is My Business… And Business Is Good!, which turns 25 tomorrow, according to metal-archives.com. First, it has the lamest censoring job ever done on a song. Lee Hazlewood didn’t like Megadeth’s deconstruction of his “These Boots Are Made For Walkin'”, so the remaster includes it with rap-style beep-outs. Second, and more importantly, it changes the nature of the album. The remaster makes everything loud and makes the band sound stronger than it was. This is a fundamental mistake.

Much of Killing‘s charm is its underdog status. Mustaine, fired from Metallica, assembled a motley crew to exact his revenge. Two of them became drug addicts, and another became “Junior”. By the time they put out their first album, Metallica had already put out two. Then their label botched the artwork with cheap-looking plastic and tinfoil. Even worse, Metallica’s “The Four Horsemen” was heavier and better than Mustaine’s original, “Mechanix”. As of 1985, Megadeth were getting their asses handed to them by Metallica.

But Megadeth are getting the last laugh, thanks to a recent upswing that’s the career equivalent of a Botox injection. Metallica have been in a mid-life crisis for a while, while Mustaine keeps himself young with a conveyor belt of hired guns. His hired guns have always played circles around Metallica. The difference now is that Metallica have no more songs, while Mustaine occasionally comes up with a corker. If Megadeth vs. Metallica were a best-of-seven series, it would be tied after six games.

I’m not interested in game seven, however. Metallica ensured that with, oh, say, the last 15 years, while Megadave did his part by closing a recent Hollywood Palladium show with “God bless you”. Religious intelligence: two words combined that don’t make sense?

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I’d rather watch the first three games again. Because even while Megadeth were getting creamed, they were going down in style. Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson, fusion guys with a shaky sense of time, swung and jabbed hard. Junior Ellefson dreamt of a time when his “Peace Sells” bass line would cap off every Megadeth show. Dave Mustaine cranked out wiry NWOBHM/thrash with one pissed-off snarl. I’d be pissed off, too, if I were losing that badly. Tempos drift all over the place. Riffs sometimes coalesce into songs. And, man, is that old logo cheesy.

And, man, do I love it. Everyone loves an underdog. Megadeth and Metallica are now both overdogs and over-exposed. In game seven, I’d want both to lose. But it’s game three now – Kill ‘Em All and Ride the Lightning were games one and two – and I can’t take off my eyes off Killing. It’s skinny, it’s fast, and it’s still giving 110%, even when it’s 20 points down.

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