"Boom!"
Promotional single by System of a Down
from the album Steal This Album!
ReleasedMarch 18, 2003
StudioCello (Hollywood)
Length2:14
Label
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)
System of a Down singles chronology
"Innervision"
(2002)		 "Boom!"
(2003)		 "B.Y.O.B."
(2005)

"Boom" is a song by American heavy metal band System of a Down. It was released as a promotional single from their third studio album, Steal This Album! (2002).

Background

"Boom!" was released as the second and final promotional single from Steal This Album!. As in the case with most songs from Steal This Album!, it has only been played live on very few occasions, with only one confirmed performance. In a Reddit AMA, drummer John Dolmayan stated, "We have played Boom! a few times but because it's a spoken word song, it doesn't have the same impact live."[1]

The song was leaked on the Toxicity II bootleg under the name "Everytime".[2]

Composition

Music

The song uses a simple AABA structure. In her essay "Boom! Goes the Global Protest Movement: Heavy Metal, Protest, and the Televisual in System of a Down’s 'Boom!' Music Video", Clare Neil King suggests that this structure enables protestors to quickly join in. It uses a Phrygian dominant scale common in heavy metal music, but also often used to create a non-Western or exotic feel. King argues that in Boom, use of this scale hints at "the location of the Iraq war and the rich Arabic culture threatened by violence".[3]

Lyrics

MTV described the song as being about "the horror of war and how governments throw exorbitant sums of money into the military and overlook other key domestic and international issues".[4]

Music video

For the music video, the band worked with filmmaker Michael Moore. The video uses footage from the anti-war protests on February 15, 2003. The video also shows a cartoon of George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair, and Osama bin Laden riding rockets over a city, referencing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Shortly after its release, the video was banned from MTV Europe,.[5] The Globe and Mail reported a viewer's offence at the video's imagery of the US president alongside terrorists, with another telling MTV the station would never be on in their house again.[6]

Billboard reported guitarist Daron Malakian as saying "The possibility of the U.S. going to war with Iraq is an extremely personal issue for me because I have family who live there [...] we’d like to have the 'Boom!' video help change the way people think about the solution to our global problems. We want to make the idea of dropping bombs, of waging war seem as antiquated and ridiculous as it is today for an Afro-American to have to sit at the back of the bus."[7]

Track listing

Australian promo single
No.TitleLyricsMusicLength
1."Boom! (Clean Version)"
  • Serj Tankian
  • Daron Malakian, Shavo Odajian
2:17
2."Boom! (Album Version)"Serj Tankian
  • Daron Malakian, Shavo Odajian
2:14
Canadian promo single
No.TitleLyricsMusicLength
1."Boom! (Video Version)"
  • Serj Tankian
  • Daron Malakian, Shavo Odajian
2:51
2."Boom! (Clean Version)"Serj Tankian
  • Daron Malakian, Shavo Odajian
2:15

References

  1. ↑ Dolmayan, John; Tankian, Serj (9 April 2015). "We are Serj Tankian and John Dolmayan from System of a Down. Ask us anything". Reddit. Retrieved April 26, 2022.
  2. ↑ Wiederhorn, John (May 10, 2002). "SYSTEM OF A DOWN FRAZZLED OVER LEAKED OUTTAKES". MTV News. MTV.
  3. ↑ Dillane, Aileen; Power, Martin J.; Devereux, Eoin; Haynes, Amanda (2018-09-30). Songs of Social Protest: International Perspectives. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-1-78660-127-8.
  4. ↑ "System Of A Down Nab Michael Moore To Helm 'Boom!' Protest Clip". MTV. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
  5. ↑ Strauss, Neil (26 March 2003). "The Pop Life; MTV Is Wary Of Videos On War". The New York Times. Retrieved March 6, 2009.
  6. ↑ "Michael Moore strikes again". The Globe and Mail. 2003-03-19. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
  7. ↑ Billboard Staff (2003-03-17). "System Of A Down Goes 'Boom' With Moore". Billboard. Retrieved 2023-12-20.
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