Peace Sells… but Who’s Buying? by Megadeth

Peace Sells... but Who's Buying?, Megadeth's second album, hit the racks in September 1986, and it's thrash with a sneer and a switchblade. Dave Mustaine snarls and shreds out front, David Ellefson's bass rumbles underneath, and Chris Poland and Gar Samuelson push the songs into wiry, off-kilter corners. Combat Records started the project, but Capitol bought the rights and brought in Paul Lani to handle the final mix.

The sessions were hard going because of the members' drug problems, and Samuelson and Poland were fired for drug abuse after the tour that followed. None of that blunts the title track, a politically charged blast that became Megadeth's first music video, or Ed Repka's cover of mascot Vic Rattlehead standing before a ruined United Nations Headquarters. It is widely counted among thrash's classics, a record that helped push extreme metal into the spotlight.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.