Only

About This Project

The Sound of White Noise by Anthrax was a crushing, landmark album when it was released in 1993. It hit the airwaves hard and gave new life to the band, featuring a new singer (John Bush replacing Joey Belladonna) and newer style of pseudo-thrash, grunge, groove, and alternative metal. To me, this album was nearly perfect and came out just at the right time for mash up style of music. The band even toured with up-and-comers Quicksand and White Zombie (if I remember those Headbanger’s Ball episodes correctly).

The first single off the album, Only, is a track I loved when I first heard it and still love today. Killer drums, killer and loud rhythm guitars, matched by the bellowing vocals of John Bush. He was the perfect match for that band at the time.

I read somewhere that the lyrics for this song were about the schizophrenic nature of Robert Smith from The Cure, or maybe just about the song writing of The Cure, but cannot verify that or find a link to support it. It’s honestly just a bad ass track that should be played very loud for full effect.

Regarding the poster, I wanted to pick up on the “white noise” and glitches found in the Only video and repurpose those into a poster. Who better to tell the story of the song than Scott Ian?

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Notes:

Among the album’s songs, “Only” has received particular attention; Metallica frontman James Hetfield is said to have referred to “Only” as a “perfect song.”

In my research, I found a well written blog article about why this album is relevant.

“For me, the change in style is what makes this album. It’s a thrash band who want to evolve working with a grunge producer who had just recently recorded Alice In Chains’ “Dirt”. It’s fair to say that Dave Jerden produced two of the best albums of all time in less than a year. The bastard.”

MUSIC VIDEO /

LYRICS /

Everything is perfect
Everything is sick, that’s it
You can’t tell me to stop it
You can’t tell me not to quit, that’s it

Revolve around yourself
It’s you and no one else
Hard for me to stay
Swinging moods that change
From calmness to deranged
Unpredictable, unpredictable

You would see if
Only
You hadn’t taken things out of my hands
Only
You never wanted to understand

Classing ways to live here
Compromise for me
I’m at both ends of the spectrum
You’re somewhere in the between
Ah, come clean

Crucified, terrified, sacrifice, my whole life
If only…
I can’t contain myself
I can’t contain myself
I just can’t take myself