A
BEAST PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT
What
do I do if I find an Anthrax album in my collection?
Questions and Answers
In
light of the new wave of terrorist attacks sweeping our great
nation, the Beast has taken time out to gather some of the
information our readers might need to protect themselves in
the upcoming months.The following Frequently Asked Questions,
with answers, were compiled following a series of interviews
we did with the Surgeon General's Office of the United States
government:
Q:
What should I do if I find an Anthrax album in my collection?
Beast:
The most important thing is not to touch it. It's been determined
that the best strategy in this situation is to take two other
albums from your collection, say, Queensryche's "Operation:
Mindcrime" and Van Halen's "5150," and use them, as one might
use a set of oven mitts, to handle your Anthrax album. As
soon as you're able, put all three albums in a rubberized
envelope, and rush them to your local album disposal center.
Q:
Is there anything I can do to prevent the Columbia House Record
Club from sending me more Anthrax albums?
A:
No. Until the U.S. military action is completed, all Americans
should assume that Columbia House might send them an Anthrax
album at any time. Various avenues for canceling memberships
have been explored by our security organs, but none have proved
reliable to date.
Q:
Is it safe to handle Beavis and Butthead's This Album Sucks
or Public Enemy's The Enemy Strikes Black? Both albums feature
Anthrax tracks.
A:
The position of the U.S. Surgeon General's office is that
any album with an Anthrax track on it is an Anthrax album.
There have been no ill effects to date from the remake of
"Bring Tha Noize," but then again, this might be mainly a
result of it not selling nearly as well as the archetypal
crossover rap single, Run-DMC/Aerosmith's "Walk This Way."
Q:
Did "Walk This Way" do better on the charts because it was
a black band doing a white band's song, as opposed to "Bring
Tha Noize," which was the opposite?
A:
It is the position of the U.S. government that "Bring Tha
Noize" was one of the greatest rap songs of all time, but
that it lost something when Anthrax's metal accompaniment
was added. "Walk This Way," on the other hand, definitely
gained something when the street sound and crisp vocals of
Russell Simmons and Daryl McDaniels were added to the familiar
Steven Tyler chorus.
 Q:
Is there anything
I can do to protect my children from the Stomp 442
album?
A:
Yes, certainly. As with any other public health crisis, education
is the key. "Stomp 442," as most of us know by now, is the
only Anthrax album that does not contain the band's name on
the cover. It features instead a giant sphere of industrial
wreckage, set against a desert landscape. The cover vaguely
recalls both Joe Walsh's "The Confessor" and Pink Floyd's
"Wish You Were Here," and children, particularly those in
early puberty, can easily mistake it for the work of another
band. Kids should be shown photos of the album in both a family
setting and in the organized educational environment of school.
[The Beast is republishing a photo of the album here]. Once
they're familiar with the cover, they'll know to keep away
just as they naturally do from better-known albums like "Spreading
the Disease" and "Among the Living."
Q:
Is Among the Living Anthrax's tour de force album?
A:
Yes. "Among the Living" is a pioneering work in the thrash/speed
metal genre. There almost isn't a weak track on it. It's indisputably
the group's masterpiece.
Q:
Are the albums from the John Bush era any less dangerous than
the Joey Belladonna-era albums?
A:
There are many purists out there who do not consider the albums
on which John Bush was the lead singer "real" Anthrax. But
the Surgeon General's office considers the John Bush albums
to be every bit as dangerous as the albums that featured Belladonna,
the original lead singer. Just because it doesn't sound like
the old Anthrax doesn't mean it isn't Anthrax.
Q:
Are my Metallica albums contaminated because Anthrax helped
out the band in its early days by giving them the gift of
a refrigerator?
A:
No. Metallica has been fully cleared by the Surgeon General's
office, although Reload has been found to be as carcinogenic
as strawberries.
Q:
Will Anthrax ever find its niche?
A:
The U.S. government has studied this question and determined
that, at least in the short term, there is no serious threat
that Anthrax will find a true niche in American society. At
its best, Anthrax was content to call itself "heavy groove-laden
power-thrash with industrial undertones," but it was obvious
that the band had pretentions to the "serious metal" that
eventually became the province of self-consciously ponderous
bands like Metallica. But Anthrax was never quite able to
pull off the "thinking man's metal" act, even though it tried
valiantly with such tracks as "Skeleton in the Closet," a
meditation on the Steven King short story Apt Pupil, and "I
Am the Law," a celebration of the comic book hero Judge Dredd.
The band's concept albums floundered; the quantum-physics-inspired
Persistence of Time was undoubtedly one of the group's low
points. Meanwhile, the group was all the time ceding its original
turf to the classic head-banging working-class metal bands
like Megadeth and Slayer. By the mid-1990s, Anthrax was basically
a curiosity, a sort of historical relic of the speed-metal
era, and not a serious commercial phenomenon.
Q:
So the chance that I either already own or will own an Anthrax
album is not very high?
A:
Relatively speaking, no. It's possible that you bought one
out of curiosity sometime in the early nineties, say just
after the release of State of Euphoria, but the likelihood
that you listened to that album frequently is, statistics
show, very, very low. The probability that you own an Anthrax
T-shirt, however, is fairly high.
Q:
Why?
A:
The T-shirts were much cooler than the actual band. In fact,
the band might have been specifically created to justify the
T-shirts.
Q:
What do I do if I find an Anthrax T-shirt in my home?
A:
There's a specific procedure. You give it to your girlfriend.
Usually, she ends up sleeping in it. Studies show that this
is harmless.
Q:
If I'm over 15, should I be listening to heavy metal at all?
A:
Absolutely. Anthrax notwithstanding, heavy metal can and should
be an important part of any adult's life. It's especially
valuable as road music and as something to put on to send
yourself off to work in the morning. The Surgeon General even
recommends that every adult male keep at least one Iron Maiden
T-shirt in his active weekend rotation until the age of 35.
Studies show that this has a salutary effect on the male self-image.
Just be careful and responsible, and you should be just fine. |
