Dave Mustaine Thinks 1994 Megadeth Album ‘Youthanasia’ Was Slowed Down Too Much to Gain Radio Airplay
The 1994 Megadeth album Youthanasia was one of the band’s most commercially successful records, received generally positive reviews when it was released, but it’s also one of the most controversial amongst fans. Frontman Dave Mustaine said in a recent interview thinks the album was slowed down too much in an attempt to gain radio airplay. In the interview with Alejandrosis (as transcribed and reported on by Metal Injection) Mustaine talked about the influence of producer Max Norman, whose idea it was, Mustaine says, to limit all the songs on the album to no faster than 120 beats per minute. Mustaine explains:
“Youthanasia was immediately certified platinum when it came out. That was the first time that happened for us. It wasn’t our first platinum record, but it was the first one that came out of the box platinum, and that was a great accomplishment for us.
“But there was also some stuff going on on that record I was unhappy about. The producer we were using, Max Norman, thought we should slow all the songs down to 120 beats per minute. So, if you’ve got a metronome when you listen to those songs, they’re all really slow.
“And I didn’t want to have any part in that. At the end of the record, that was the end of our production team. I believe when you do something together, you have to make compromises. But that was just too much. We’re a metal band, you can’t have everything have 120 BPM. It’s, it’s obvious that that’s a radio tempo.”
I mean, it’s not entirely fair of him to say that everything in metal has to be incredibly fast all the time just to qualify as metal. It’s not like sludge isn’t a form of metal, too. But, of course, speed is a big part of Mustaine’s style (and personality) so it’s easy to see why he’d take issue with that one particular aspect of this album. After all, Mustaine is the guy who literally injured his spine from headbanging too hard and, according to an old ESPN article, he had to have the same surgery (and surgeon) as Peyton Manning had to have when he injured his spine. Think about that: Dave Mustaine has given him the same injury from headbanging that Peyton Manning got from being tackled by lineman in the NFL. No wonder Mustaine doesn’t want to play too slowly in his music, even if his doctor would probably prefer it if he slowed down a little bit, too.
