Mavericks: System of a Down

At a time when few artists risk alienating fans by talking politics, System of a Down spent 2005 leading protests outside House Speaker Dennis Hastert's office, drawing attention to the plight of homeless people in Los Angeles and slamming the Bush administration -- and still found time to rule the charts. In May, the band debuted at Number One with Mezmerize (which has sold 1.5 million copies to date), and hit the top spot again in November when Hypnotize moved 320,000 units in its first week.

System's new albums feature typically high-octane prog-metal infused with delicate melodies, vocal harmonies and oddball rants. The discourse is often explicitly political, as when Serj Tankian asks, "Why don't presidents fight the wars?" on Mezmerize's "B.Y.O.B.," but is just as often personal or flat-out absurd: "Banana, banana/Banana terra cotta/Banana terra cotta/Terra cotta pie," from Hypnotize's "Vicinity of Obscenity." "We're politically progressive in many ways," says frontman Tankian, who, with Audioslave guitarist Tom Morello, founded the grass-roots political action group Axis of Justice in 2002 to organize support for everyone from L.A.-area farmers to anti-war resisters. "But people know that we're not just a political band, that we really try to push our progressive values in terms of art."

System of a Down have been making waves since the very beginning. On September 11th, 2001, the band debuted at Number One with Toxicity -- which featured critiques of America's justice system ("Prison Song") and police brutality ("Deer Dance"). The next day, Tankian posted an essay called "Understanding Oil" on the band's Web site that sought to explain the 9/11 attacks as a response to U.S. foreign policy. It provoked a torrent of angry responses and death threats, and the essay was pulled hours after it went up. "Along the way, we've paid the price for our outspokenness," says Tankian.

System remain as committed to their beliefs as ever -- and they're getting results. In September, Tankian and drummer John Dolmayan detoured from the band's promotional regimen to lead a protest outside Hastert's Illinois office calling for the U.S. government to officially recognize Turkey's murder of 1.5 million Armenians during World War I. Already, as a result of the group's persistent efforts and those of other activists, the European Union has urged Turkey to recognize the genocide.

"We're told our efforts played a part in the developments, but the important thing is that it has come into the public eye," says Tankian, whose grandfather is a survivor of the genocide. "I think we kind of stirred things up a bit this year."