The result of all of this was a band having a number of songs on collected soundtracks and other albums, but not together under the one Megadeth banner. Some people went out and bought the soundtracks and other albums purely for the fact that a new Megadeth song appeared on them and nowhere else – yep, you are hearing from one of those people right here. And those record companies and conglomerates would have been happy to have taken my money. But there was a need, a great need, to bring all of these great songs together on one album, under the Megadeth name, so that we could all enjoy them, and all enjoy them together. So, in 1995, the EP called “Hidden Treasures” was released, and did exactly that. Eight songs, all written and recorded by Megadeth, over a period of six years and eight different projects. And despite the fact that it received a wide range of negative reviews, it is arguably one of the best Megadeth releases ever.
The great thing about the eight collected tracks here is that they all contain the same line up of the band, apart from the first song, which was recorded before the recruitment of Marty Friedman on guitar prior to the writing and recording of the “Rust in Peace” album. That track was “No More Mr Nice Guy”, the cover of the Alice Cooper Band song from their “Billion Dollar Babies” album. On this version Dave played all the guitars. It was recorded for the soundtrack to the 1989 horror movie “Shocker”, a soundtrack that Alice appeared on as well. This was released as a single, and was promoted by Alice coming on stage and strapping Dave into an electric chair and throwing the switch. This is a great version of the original track, and retains all of its energy while being a perfect Megadeth version of the song. “Breakpoint” follows, and comes from the original Super Mario Brothers film from 1993 that starred Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo. The soundtrack is very eclectic, but Megadeth’s contribution is a very solid track to a movie that was not particularly well received with a lot of trouble from the husband and wife directing team. Still, “Breakpoint” is a high quality song considering it was written following the release of “Countdown to Extinction” and it follows those kinds of parameters of songs from that album.
“Go to Hell” has a great rumbling sinister feel to the track all the way through, highlighted by Dave Ellefson’s guttural bass guitar riff and that Mustaine styled chant/talking lyrics that suit it perfectly. This came from the soundtrack to “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey”, a plethora of who's who in heavy music at the time, and “Go to Hell” was a standout, one that was great in the scene it was utilised for and also on the soundtrack. This is followed by arguably the best of the songs collected here, “Angry Again” that just jumps out of the speakers at you with from the outset with its dual guitar riffs into the bang on rhythm that runs through the remainder of the song. Dave’s doubled vocals through the chorus also lift the track, making for another terrific song. It’s amazing that the film that it was written for, “The Last Action Hero”, never reached the heights that it was expected to because of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s huge bulking frame starring in the lead role, but the soundtrack is lauded as one of the best to ever be released, with bands such as AC/DC, Alice in Chains, Queensryche, Def Leppard, Anthrax and Aerosmith along with Megadeth.
One album that I did not and have not owned was one called “The Beavis and Butt-head Experience”, that had a collection of songs from artists as well as witticisms from the two protagonists who were the stars of the cartoon series. Megadeth contributed a song to this album, that to be honest I’m not sure how long it was after this that I actually heard. It just seems to have been around in my collection forever, and yet it doesn’t appear on an album, so I must have it somewhere. That song is “99 Ways to Die”, which also ranks highly as one of the best songs here. This is followed by the high velocity version of Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” that the band contributed to the tribute album “Nativity in Black: A Tribute to Black Sabbath”. Now, for years since I first got the Sabbath tribute album, I felt that, despite this being a good version of the song, why did they not choose something bigger, better, more technical, and Megadeth the hell out of that! And I’ve never known why. But, as a version of a very simple song, this is a beauty. Faithful and brutal. Another album that I didn’t own was the soundtrack to the horror film “Demon Knight” - in fact, it’s a film I haven’t seen either, which makes me doubt that it got a release in Australia because it was the kind of film that myself and my friends would go to see on a regular basis. Anyway, this was a song that I was unfamiliar with until this compilation came out, the song being “Diadems”. And hey, it’s fine! It doesn’t reach the heights of the songs that come before it on this album but it is enjoyable. And we tie things up here with Megadeth’s cover of the Sex Pistols song “Problems”, which appeared on the single of “A Tout le Monde”, which is fine for what it is, but as I’ve said before, covering songs by The Sex Pistols can be a tricky thing to do, especially away from the era of the late 1970’s. It sounds fine, but Dave’s vocals probably don’t really give it feeling and desire that the track requires to make it truly special.
In the 1990’s there was a couple of these releases from Megadeth that I didn’t come across immediately, another one being “Live Trax” that had some great live version of songs on it. Eventually through the magic of file sharing I discovered a whole lot of stuff that could easily have passed me by. So I did find this eventually, though as I have mentioned through this episode, I did own most of these songs on the various soundtrack or tribute albums that they had been released on initially. That’s a lot of hard CD purchasing to go through to pick up the occasional good or great song.
And that is the beauty of this EP. It brings them all together on one CD so that you don’t have to go searching for them all over the place. In this day and age of course, with all of the streaming platforms, you can make your own playlist and listen to them, or indeed just stream this EP and enjoy it as much as you like. Me, I prefer to have the CD copy, to play it on my stereo in the Metal Cavern to my hearts content.
One does wonder why this EP was bagged out in the music media at the time of its release. These aren’t B-side tracks, throwaways from album writing that didn’t make those albums. These were purpose written or chosen to be performed for the movies that they are on, or are songs performed for the artists tribute album. There is a bit of work gone into them. And perhaps it is just that for the most part I have enjoyed all of the films these songs appeared in. And perhaps it is just that I do love the band, especially in the era these al came from, and I’ll back whatever they did during that period. In the long run, I saw and heard something a lot different than those who were being cited for the job of reviewing the release.
I’ve had this out again, and enjoyed it all over again. These are fun songs, these are songs that have enough attitude in them to get the adrenaline pumping. This is Mustaine, Ellefson, Friedman and Menza. This is Megadeth. What the HELL is not t like?!?
No comments:
Post a Comment