Elect the Dead


Elect the Dead is the debut studio album by rock musician Serj Tankian, lead singer and founding member of Armenian-American metal band System of a Down. It was released on October 22, 2007. Alongside Tankian appears Armenian-American coloratura Ani Maldjian, drummers John Dolmayan and Brain, Dan Monti on guitars, as well as a string section featuring Antonio Pontarelli.

Marketing

The initial single from the album was a two-track promo including "Empty Walls" and "The Unthinking Majority", released on September 10, 2007. Tankian immediately appeared on MTV's "You Rock the Deuce" program. Meanwhile, a music video of "Feed Us" was released in Sweden and on UK MTV.
The album was released October 22, 2007 and opened at number 4 with 66,000 US units sold according to the Billboard 200 trade listing.
By September 2010, the album had sold 319,000 copies total.
Music videos of the album's songs were each filmed by discrete directors. Tankian revealed: "I asked each of the directors for their visual interpretation of my work. They were asked not to write treatments and that they could make whatever they liked. The results have been overwhelmingly amazing".
Initially some videos were released as limited edition premiums. All videos were later freely offered on Tankian's website and his YouTube channel. Some of these "official videos" were alternate versions released one version at a time, suggesting incrementally evolving narrative.
Collectible versions of the album include an instrumental disc offered by Serjical Strike/Reprise Records, and the "final master" from Reprise intended for specific journalists and reviewers. That embargoed disc was labeled "Smart Talk" .
Previously an undated, un-mastered 'Smart Talk' promo featured these same 'final versions' of the songs, but the sequence of tracks ten and eleven was juxtaposed.

Production

Tankian stated that some of these songs were new, and others had developed earlier. An acoustic version of "Blue" was released on the album's special edition bonus disc. The original version appeared on System of a Down's fourth demo tape but had no other recordings of the song were known to exist.
The title track was also recorded by System of a Down during the recording sessions for Mezmerize and Hypnotize but this version remains unreleased.
An Elect the Dead tour commenced October 12, 2007 at Chicago's Vic Theater. Tankian cautioned fans this production featured a new band, Flying Cunts of Chaos, which was not promoting the System of a Down.
In 2009, Tankian did a symphonic tour with an orchestra in order to perform symphonic renditions of most of the songs from Elect the Dead. A recording of this tour titled Elect the Dead Symphony was released February 23, 2010 in the US.

Track listing

Personnel

  • Serj Tankian: Songwriting, production, engineering, guitars, bass, piano, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, melodica, bells
  • Dan Monti: engineering
;Elect the Dead
  • Brain: Drums
  • John Dolmayan: Drums
  • Dan Monti: Drum programming, guitar, bass, synthesizers
  • Diran Noubar: guitar solo
  • Ani Maldjian: additional vocals
  • Cameron Stone: cello
  • Antonio Pontarelli: violin
  • Fabrice Favre: synthesizers
  • Krish Sharma: Drum engineer
  • Bo Joe: Assistant drum engineer
  • Sako Karaian: Drum technician
  • Neal Avron: Mixing
  • Nicholas Fournier: Mix assistant
;Special edition bonus disc
  • Antonio Pontarelli: violin
  • Cameron Stone: cello
  • Dan Monti: additional guitars
  • John Dolmayan: drums
  • Thom Russo: engineering
  • Serj Tankian & Dan Monti: mixing
  • Krish Sharma: Drum engineer
  • Bo Joe: Assistant drum engineer
  • Sako Karaian: Drum technician
  • Neal Avron: mixing
  • Nicholas Fournier: mix assistant
  • Craig Aaronson & George Tonikian: A&R
  • Sako Shahinian: Artwork, album packaging design
  • Keith Aazami: Digipack album packaging design
  • Greg Watermann: Photography

    Charts