Peace Sells

"Peace Sells" ( sample (help·info)) is the name of a song by Megadeth from the album Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, written by Dave Mustaine. It is one of their most popular songs of the album, along with Wake Up Dead.^{[citation needed]} VH1 ranked it as #11 on their list of the 40 greatest metal songs of all time^[1] and in 2009 it was named the 51^st best hard rock song of all time also by VH1.^[2] The opening bassline was also used as the theme for MTV News. Mustaine claims he never received any royalties for MTV's usage of the song.^[3]

Lyrically, it deals with disillusion, Cold War politics, and military combat, all recurring themes in Megadeth songs. It also deals with negative stereotypes about "metalheads", all of which Mustaine claims are untrue.

A music video was also produced for the song, which features a teenage boy, wearing a Slayer t-shirt, watching a montage of a live Megadeth performance and war footage on his living room television set. The boy's father, states "I want to watch the news!," and changes the television channel to a news station using the remote control. His son, replying with "This is the news!," changes it back to the Megadeth performance using the TV set's channel knob. This part of the video was parodied by comedian Brian Posehn in his Metal by Numbers video.

The song was also featured in the popular games like Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, True Crime: Streets of LA, NHL 10 and is a playable track on Rock Band 2.

Tigertailz covered the song and it can be found on their 1991 album Banzai!.

References