EP 223.5: Slayer

What’s up, everyone? I’m writing a rare off week post because the subject matter is that crucial. This week on Patreon we talked the best and worst Slayer songs.

But since this is the 185 Substack, let’s keep it core…

In 1996, Slayer put out a (mostly) covers album called Undisputed Attitude. It served as a gap album between their first okay album and their first dogshit one. Why does it exist? I’d speculate that with Green Day/Offspring blowing up in 1994 and youth culture being all over punk, they wanted to tell everyone they were punk first (whoopty-doo) and they like the HARD shit. Plus they were probably just out of ideas.

"When we did Undisputed Attitude in 1996, we did that in rebellion to Green Day and the Offspring," Kerry King told Metal Hammer in 2016. "It's not their fault, but everyone called them punk bands and me and Jeff were, 'This isn't punk, guys.' We just took offense to it and Undisputed Attitude was that coming out."

So was it good?

I always remember liking it as a novelty that I never really went back to. The most memorable thing unfortunately was the changing of the Minor Threat lyrics.

It’s been years since I listened to this thing, so let’s dig in.

They kick the album off with four Verbal Abuse tracks. Hanneman must’ve gotten their first LP early in his punk life or something because almost a third of the covers on here are Verbal Abuse tracks. The LP is good, don’t get me wrong, but it definitely doesn’t make my top 20 and might not make my top 50 of 80’s USHC records. In a way, that makes this project charming - since they’re choosing some stuff that they want to give shine to.

Slayer play the songs pretty straight, just adding in a bit of speed picking to give their own flare. I think “Leeches” by Verbal Abuse is a spectacular song that captures the early 80’s hardcore PUNK sound perfectly, bouncing back and forth between loose mid-tempo and blazing fast. Slayer by 1996 is such a machine that they are too rigid to pull off those loose mid-tempo parts and they come off stiff and soulless. Paul Bostaph is a great drummer but has no roots in punk. This was a record that needed Lombardo.

The next two songs are from the first T.S.O.L. 12”. These work somewhat because the down strumming on the originals play into something that Slayer is pretty great at. They do “Abolish Government” into “Superficial Love” instead of “Silent Majority” which was probably a pretty good move as “Silent Majority” has such great subtle guitar work on the choruses that would’ve been completely stripped. Instead for their stamp on “Superficial Love” we get a wah-wah solo. More like womp womp, amirite? Anyone? Is this thing on?

We’ve made it to the two original punk tracks! Apparently these were written in 84/85 for a Jeff Hanneman punk band that never materialized called Pap Smear. Both kind of just sound like Slayer covering Verbal Abuse, so in that aspect I guess these songs were what they were going for. They sound like a thrash metal band playing mid-80’s USHC. Case in point, “Ddamm” is a minute long song where half of it is a guitar solo.

In hindsight, “Guilty of Being White” is a weird song to start with. Of course it made sense from Ian’s point of view growing up in DC in the late 70’s/early 80’s but here you see how it can be completely flipped into a gross thing.

"To me, at the time and now, it seemed clear it's an anti-racist song. Of course, it didn't occur to me at the time I wrote it that anybody outside of my twenty or thirty friends who I was singing to would ever have to actually ponder the lyrics or even consider them." Ian Mackaye in Our Band Could Be Your Life

“Guilty Of Being White” was a song I wrote growing up in DC, being part of the minority — the White population. It drove me crazy — people would beat the shit out of me or rob me because I was White. We had a history class talking about slavery and after class a couple of guys just knocked the shit out of me. It was right around the time Roots was on. I got beat up because I was the “massa.” People were judging me on the color of my skin, so I wrote what I thought was a really direct anti-racist song — I wanted to say something radical. With any of these songs, I wanted to take a strong position. I didn’t think anybody outside DC would ever hear this song. It’s weird for me to go to Poland and hear kids say, “ ‘Guilty Of Being White’ is a very good song. We are White Power.” It played totally different in other contexts. Slayer covered it and changed the last line to “guilty of being right.” It’s so offensive to me.” Ian MacKaye in poser Steven Blush’s American Hardcore

Slayer brushed it off at the time saying they were just taking the piss out of people and hid behind Tom Araya’s Chilean heritage, as if there is no racism in Central or South America. Anyway, this sucked. So did this.

"We're always over-the-top," said Kerry in an audio interview with Toazted.com. "Tom was in there singing it, and he just did it that way, and I was like, 'That's pretty cool!' It's pretty much tongue in cheek."

Fuck off.

Musically, of course, this kicks ass because it’s the best metal band covering a song off the best hardcore 7” of 1981 but its overshadowed by the bullshit.

We’re onto the 5th Verbal Abuse track. The original is a snotty midtempo sleazer. The Slayer version is just boring - missing all the elements that made the original cool.

Two more Minor Threat songs. “Filler” is a big miss with the speed picking. “I Don’t Want to Hear It” is okay but a reminder that a big part of old school punk and hardcore is the recording. You’d never know that these were two of the greatest hardcore songs of all time from these Slayer versions. They could just be two more Verbal Abuse songs.

This works in my opinion. They completely Slayer-ize this classic O.C. punk track which is the move, instead of just playing it straight or forcing themselves to try to be punk. If they failed at capturing the soul of Verbal Abuse there’s no way they can touch what Rikk Agnew and Casey Royer were doing in ‘85. D.I. rules.

This has been a sense of pride for pretty much every Nardcore kid from Oxnard, CA…at least in my era and the eras preceding me.

Slayer likes Dr. Know too!

Kyle Toucher was obviously a metal head and both Plug in Jesus and the Burn 7” really capture the fury of what hardcore punk could be with some metal leanings. In fact, Dr. Know joined Metal Blade in 1986 just as Slayer left.

This is a mid-tempo banger and Slayer tapped into Kyle’s metal sensibilities well making it a highlight of the album.

It’s a no brainer for Slayer to do DRI on this record. It would’ve been sicker if they just did the Dirty Rotten EP straight. This song is another miss because it loses the two things that make DRI great in this era: that fast-as-fuck loose feel and Kurt’s punk-as-fuck vocals.

I’m beating a dead horse at this point but this is another miss. Slayer can’t capture the loose swing of these sloggy, drone’d out mid-tempo 80’s punk parts. Here they attempt to pull off one of the most classic D.I. songs.

Now we’re into proto-punk territory with a Stooges cover of “I Wanna Be Your Dog” flipped to “I’m Gonna Be Your God.” Where is the facepalm emoji on this thing?

That’s it for the punk. The album ends with a new original called “Gemini” which sucks and gives you a teaser of the next LP to come which will be more suck. This track could’ve made my Beast list but I forgot about it.

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So we can end on a positive note, here are two things:

1. Back in high school, Ryan Fredette from In Control loved Slayer but hated guitar solos so much that he edited Decade of Aggression on his dual tape player to omit all the solos. Here is my best shot at a recreation of CD 1 for all you psychos out there:

2. Here’s a Slayer piece from BRAINDAMAGE #1:

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Next week on the pod, we’re going old school hardcore too…taking it all the way back to 1982 for a Super 7. It’ll be good. We won’t add speed picking or wah-wah solos to the classics.

Hardcore rules…peace!

- ZN