I love Countdown to Extinction, I’ll even go as far as aying that after decades of listening to Megadeth I truly think it’s their greatest album. Despite it’s obvious attempt to crossover, successfully doing so and subsequently then being labeled a “sell-out” album there was absolutely nothing awful  about Countdown to Extinction. It’s Megdeth’s Darkside of the Moon… Not the album you say is your favorite Floyd album if you want to raise some cool guy points, but in the larger scope of things is their greatest achievement. Asking a madman like Dave Mustaine to write a pop album is like asking Picasso to draw a Spider-Man comic, if you have an open mind it may just be the most amazing thing you’ll have ever seen/heard. Much like Metallica, Megadeth sacrificed some of their edge and bite in favor of melody and pop structure. But the difference between Megadeth and Metallica attempting to do the exact same thing is Dave Mustaine just doesn’t get how to… and I mean that in a good way. So you get something like Countdown to Extinction, an art damaged, concept driven attempt at radio-friendly Thrash Metal. In many ways it’s a lot like ESG, who thought they were just creating really awful Disco, but were in fact creating some of the best Post-Punk you’ll ever hear.

So what does any of this have anything to do with Youthanasia? Well in many ways Youthanasia is simply Countdown to Extinction part II. But the big difference this time is that Dave Mustaine is consciously trying to follow the same formula that made Countdown To Extinction so good and you just can’t do that! That’s not how the magic happens. The album starts off fucking amazing with Reckoning Day your typical “Holy fuck this album is going to blow my balls off” intro song to a metal album, much like Skin O’ My Teeth. It then goes to Symphony of Destr…err I mean Train of Consequences. And there you can start seeing my point. From then on in it just tries to recreate song for song some what was already perfectly done on Countdown To Extinction. So I’ve made clear what makes this album awful.. but what makes it so awesome? Well for one it’s Dave Mustaine and he is trying recerate a great album,  so some of these retreads are still quite enjoyable! AC/DC has basically has done the same album countless times with a majority of them being pretty fucking awesome so it can totally be done! And as I already mentioned, Reckoning Day is pretty fucking awesome! Train of Consequences is still good pop metal filler and A Tout Le Monde is well, um… amusing. Its all the songs around them that sink this album and make it hard to listen to. They’re all second rate versions of Countdown to Extinction songs that don’t offer a formula you can simply plug into and have it work well twice.

On an interesting side note: I remember seeing Megadeth on the old Jon Stewart Show when they were promoting Youthansia. In the audience that day were these two grizzled old metal heads who were so clearly wasted I have no clue how they got past securityand into the studio. At the end of Train of Consequences Megadeth started throwing out T-shirts into the crowd. These two dude started howling and begging Dave Mustaine and Marty Friedman to toss them some tees. But they were all the way in the back and you can only throw a t-shirt so far! After they were out of tees to give away these two dudes got super pissed off and got up and started screaming “Fuck you Dave, you fucking alcohlolic! You deserved to be kicked out of Metallica you asshole!” This went on for a good 5 minutes until security could get up there and usher these dudes out of the studio kicking and screaming! Megadeth then went on to preform Symphony of Destruction and I think Hangar 18 after the taping was over. This was almost as good as seeing Dave Mustaine cry to Lars Ulrich about how he felt when he got kicked out of the band in the Some Kind of Monster (seriously the only reason to watch this movie).