Steal This Album!

Steal This Album! is the third studio album by Armenian-American rock band System of a Down, released on November 26, 2002, on American Recordings. The album was produced by Rick Rubin and Daron Malakian, and reached #15 in the Billboard Top 200. This album was released shortly after a collection of medium-quality MP3s found its way onto the Internet under the unofficial name Toxicity II, a year after the release of the group's multi-platinum record, Toxicity. The band issued a statement expressing their disappointment that their fans were hearing unfinished material, and released the finished versions of the leaked material. Most, but not all tracks from the original leak (e.g. "Cherry") made it onto Steal This Album!, and three new tracks including "Roulette" were also added. Many song titles, lyrics, and melodies were changed, making the new album significantly different from the unfinished product. Though often reported in the media as being a collection of B-sides and outtakes, the band insists that the Steal This Album! material is of the same quality as the tracks which made it onto Toxicity. Vocalist Serj Tankian has said that the songs were left out of Toxicity "because they did not fit the overall continuity of the album"