Some context: Slayer is an American thrash metal band from Huntington Park, California. The band was formed in 1981 by vocalist/bassist Tom Araya and guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman. Slayer's fast and aggressive musical style made them one of the founding "big four" bands of thrash metal, alongside Metallica, Megadeth and Anthrax. Slayer's current lineup comprises King, Araya, drummer Paul Bostaph and guitarist Gary Holt.
Following the success of Hell Awaits, Slayer was offered a recording contract with Russell Simmons and Rick Rubin's newly founded Def Jam Records, a largely hip hop-based label. The band accepted and with an experienced producer and major label recording budget, the band underwent a sonic makeover for their third album Reign in Blood resulting in shorter, faster songs with clearer production. Gone were the complex arrangements and long songs featured on Hell Awaits, ditched in favor of stripped down, hardcore punk influenced song structures. Def Jam's distributor, Columbia Records, refused to release the album due to the song "Angel of Death" which detailed Holocaust concentration camps and the human experiments conducted by Nazi physician Josef Mengele. The album was distributed by Geffen Records on October 7, 1986. However, due to the controversy, Reign in Blood did not appear on Geffen Records' release schedule. Although the album received virtually no radio airplay, it became the band's first to enter the Billboard 200, debuting at number 94, and the band's first album certified gold in the United States. In October 1986, Slayer embarked on the Reign in Pain world tour, with Overkill in the US, and Malice in Europe. The band was added as the opening act on W.A.S.P.'s US tour, but just one month in, drummer Lombardo left the band: "I wasn't making any money. I figured if we were gonna be doing this professionally, on a major label, I wanted my rent and utilities paid." To continue with the tour, Slayer enlisted Tony Scaglione of Whiplash. However, Lombardo was convinced by his wife to return in 1987. At the insistence of Rubin, Slayer recorded a cover version of Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" for the film Less Than Zero. Although the band was not happy with the final product, Hanneman deeming it "a poor representation of Slayer" and King labeling it "a hunk of shit," it was one of their first songs to garner radio airplay.
How high did Angel of Death get in the charts?
A: the Billboard 200, debuting at number 94, and the band's first album certified gold in the United States.
Some context: "Sympathy for the Devil" is a samba rock song by the Rolling Stones, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. Sung by Jagger, the song refers to the Devil, written in the first-person narrative, recounting atrocities committed throughout the history of humanity as if they were somehow "inspired" (or at least witnessed) by him. Although it has been deemed by some as "a homage", in reality, no admiration (or even sympathy, for that matter) is declared for the Devil in the song -other than his "own" request. It is performed in a rock arrangement with a samba rhythm, first appearing as the opening track on their 1968 album Beggars Banquet.
The recording of "Sympathy for the Devil" began at London's Olympic Sound Studios on 4 June 1968 and continued into the next day; overdubs were done on 8, 9 and 10 June. Personnel included on the recording include Nicky Hopkins on piano, Rocky Dijon on congas and Bill Wyman on maracas. Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Brian Jones, Charlie Watts, producer Jimmy Miller, Wyman and Richards performed backup vocals, singing the "woo woos". Richards plays bass on the original recording, and also electric guitar. Brian Jones plays a mostly mixed out acoustic guitar, although in isolated tracks of the studio cut, it is audible playing along with the piano. In the 2003 book According to the Rolling Stones, Watts commented: "Sympathy" was one of those sort of songs where we tried everything. The first time I ever heard the song was when Mick was playing it at the front door of a house I lived at in Sussex ... He played it entirely on his own ... and it was fantastic. We had a go at loads of different ways of playing it; in the end I just played a jazz Latin feel in the style of Kenny Clarke would have played on "A Night in Tunisia" - not the actual rhythm he played, but the same styling. On the overall power of the song, Jagger continued in Rolling Stone: It has a very hypnotic groove, a samba, which has a tremendous hypnotic power, rather like good dance music. It doesn't speed up or slow down. It keeps this constant groove. Plus, the actual samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it is also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive--because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm (candomble). So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it. But forgetting the cultural colors, it is a very good vehicle for producing a powerful piece. It becomes less pretentious because it is a very unpretentious groove. If it had been done as a ballad, it wouldn't have been as good.
Where was this song recorded?
A:
London's Olympic Sound Studios