Toxicity turns 25 today, and System Of A Down have marked it with a vinyl edition that fixes a mistake nearly as old as the album.
Orders opened through the band’s webstore late on Wednesday night. The release date on the packaging is November 20, through Legacy Recordings.
The set pairs the album with a 7″ single of “Johnny“, a track from the same period that has only ever appeared as a bonus on rare 2001 editions. The B-side of the 7” carries a custom etched “25” design rather than a song, and the package includes a double-sided poster.
The significant change is on the tracklist itself. The hidden song that closes Toxicity is named on this pressing as “Der Voghormia“.
For a quarter of a century it has circulated as “Arto“, after Arto Tunçboyacıyan, the Armenian musician who plays on it. That was never its title. “Der Voghormia” is a phrase from Armenian liturgy, and this is the first release to label the track correctly.
The timing is not accidental. The RIAA issued a batch of new certifications for the album on August 28, a week before the anniversary.
- “Chop Suey!” — Diamond (10x platinum)
- Toxicity (album) — 7x platinum
- “Toxicity” (single) — 6x platinum
- “Aerials” — 4x platinum
- “Prison Song” — platinum
- “ATWA“, “Deer Dance“, “Forest“, “Needles“, “Psycho” — gold
The album had last been certified 6x platinum in July 2022, and “Chop Suey!” was 5x platinum at that point. The song has since passed two billion streams across all platforms.
Diamond singles are rare in metal, because the genre has historically sold albums rather than tracks. Metallica‘s self-titled album is certified double diamond, and yet none of its singles have reached the mark on their own — “Enter Sandman“, the biggest of them, stops at 9x platinum.
“Chop Suey!” is System Of A Down‘s first diamond single and one of very few in the genre’s history.
Toxicity was released on September 4, 2001, produced by Rick Rubin, and entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1. It arrived a week before the September 11 attacks, which reshaped the context around a record made by four Armenian-American musicians almost immediately.
Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian and John Dolmayan followed it with Steal This Album! in 2002 and the paired Mezmerize and Hypnotize in 2005, and have not released a full album since.
