So Far So Good So What is easily overlooked for a few reasons, and I believe one of them is due to the fact that this album had the line up that I consider the 'here today gone tomorrow' line up. You know those two guys who you might not recognize, care about, or even consider in the same league as the other outstanding musicians who have played with Dave & Dave. Of course I am talking about Jeff Young and Chuck Behler. Both were picked up amidst the hassle of firing Chris Poland and the late Gar Samuelson, two admired legends who will go down in history thanks to their contributions to Peace Sells, But Whose Buying as guitarist and drummer respectively. It's hard to recapture the energy from such a seminal album, and both Young and Behler were really pressured to do so when they jumped into the new roles. Unfortunately due to a combination of reasons, Young and Behler were gone immediately after the So Far So Good So What tour ended. Their faces and part in the band may best be remembered for being in the documentary Decline Of Western Civilization II, otherwise unless you're a close fan of the band you may not even notice who they are or what part they played in Megadeth for a year. Let us also not forget that the talents of Behler and Young hit a pretty high standard. Of course they weren't able to really leave any creative footprints on the band due to the fact that they were picked up in the middle of the album's recording period, and they were gone before another album went in the works, but they kept up and performed strongly on each track.
Now as for the album itself, in my opinion it's a masterpiece that really could not have been a better follow up to Peace Sells, especially given the conditions that the band were working with. A lot of reviews done at the time of this album's release hailed it as a transformational epitome of thrash metal, and hailed it as the beginning of Mustaine's longevity as an artist. The album also had the commercial success to back up those words, with hundreds of thousands of units being sold in its first month alone, and it would go on to be a platinum record for the band. I think the critical praise it had in 1988 still holds true today, although many industry experts call this one a juvenile album in retrospective. I think calling it juvenile is a half truth, or maybe a quarter truth, because there are certainly some words I have about the "Anarchy In The U.K" cover, but that track was really an example of the times. Few thrash metal bands were not pressured to put a recognized rock track into the mix when they were releasing new albums, and almost all of those covers were embarrassing.
"Mary Jane" is still a fan favorite after 27 years, and "In My Darkest Hour" is one of the greatest heavy metal songs ever written. From front to back So Far So Good So What is an adrenaline fueled frenzy of speed and aggression coming from one of the darkest if not the darkest period of this band's history. The drugs were everywhere, and probably at no point was the thrash metal scene as competitive as it was between '87 and '89. Dave knew that he had to make an album that would stand out. There was no time to relax and just take it in after the success of Peace Sells. If he released anything short of the most killer album out there, Megadeth would have taken a backseat to bands like Exodus, Slayer, Overkill, Testament, Kreator, Sodom, Anthrax, and of course that other band... Metallica. If So Far So Good wasn't a genuine M60 hail of bullets out of the gates, then Megadeth may have become one of the countless other cult bands that released one or two great albums and then disappeared. I do think that pressure played a part in the band's creative process and the rush it took to hurry this album out of the recording studio, but to Megadeth's strength, they had two of the greatest musicians in the industry and a very strong creative team behind the warhorse. Ellefson and Mustaine could come up with a magnum opus on demand, and they did. No one, and I mean no one in the business have the collaborative gift that they shared and still share today. Again, I think there are some truths to the criticism that is attached to this album, but to focus on them is like complaining about a girlfriend who loses her keys a lot but is otherwise a perfect match and usually a killer lay.
If this album had a vagina, I would fuck it every day of my life for a lifetime. On the other hand if the riffs on this album were a sexual activity, I would be able to stay alone forever. "502," "Hook In Mouth," "Liar," "Set The World Afire," and of course you could not forget the fan favorite instrumental "Into The Lungs Of Hell," all set a higher precedent for what was expected in Megadeth's territory of raw thrash metal. Was Megadeth ever stronger than this? Again, it's hard to say, because Megadeth has constantly shown to be a band that succeeds with multiple transitions, but I don't think that Megadeth could have been any stronger for where their focus was at that point as a purely fucked up thrash metal band. Each track drips with nasty grooves and contempt, and lyrically either A) cuts right to the chase of a self-destructive world in an intellectual way that provides examples of where we're heading as society, or B) inspires a self awareness of individual destructive behaviors that were all but universal in the extreme metal scene at the time ex: "502," a song about drunk driving, and "Mary Jane," a track that clearly suggests an individual who has fried their brain in an attempt to escape from reality by means of drugs.
The depth of this band's catalog is unlike anything else out there, and dismissing So Far So Good So What's place in that catalog is simply repulsive. In contradiction to the claims that this was an immature follow up to Peace Sells, So Far So Good has a lot of lyrically matured themes that hadn't fully evolved into the fold yet on their second album. The scathing social criticisms of "Hook In Mouth" and apocalyptic revelations so abundantly clear on "Set The World Afire" would go on to be enduring assets to the band's career with each album that followed after. They're a huge step forward from the title track of Peace Sells. I couldn't say that the album is as influential as Peace Sells or Rust In Peace, but I think that it is just as important. In fact So Far So Good So What may have been the most critical album in Megadeth's career. They came out of a really dark shadow that hung over them in an uncertain drug fueled period that usually destroys a band, and followed up the thrash metal masterpieces of '86 with one of the best thrash metal albums ever recorded.
Now without further adieu, I leave you with one of my favorite lines in metal;
"No survivors, set the world afire!"
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