Megadeth – Youthanasia – 1994

I think the cover art of Youthanasia is the beast of all Megadeth’s releases. That, together with the title pun speaks to me. It’s unclear why the title is not written on it. Anyway, this album came out when Megadeth was in a particularly good place. The previous album Countdown to Extinction was a masterpiece in my mind and I think they wanted to do another album with that style. That’s pretty catchy melodies and songs that are easy to get. There are of course some signature licks by Dave Mustaine along the way but it’s not really experimental. And it could be argued that both Youthanasia and Countdown to Extinction are kinda sidetracked from the first five albums which undeniably is more “trashy”.

But I like this Heavy Metal Approach and everything doesn’t need to be played at lightning speed to be great! As always there are social commentary lyrics. Songs about incest are mixed with songs about social exclusion and self-conscious songs like I Thought I Knew it All. Angst also seems to have a given place in Megadeth’s lyrics and if you like that kind of stuff you won’t be disappointed…and there’s some fantasy lyric in there as well. Not only Dio wrote about dungeons and dragons… One of my absolute favorite Megadeth and Metal albums of all time!