On October 7, 1986, "Slayer" released one of the biggest and most influential albums in the thrash metal genre - "Reign in Blood".
Here are 36 interesting facts about the album:
1. This is the band's third album, whose debut album was released 3 years earlier, in 1983.
2. The album has 10 songs, but is only 28:55 minutes long, which indicates, among other things, the average speed of playing in it. This "achievement" is intensified by the fact that the opening song "Angel of Death" stretches over 4:51 minutes out of 28:55 minutes.
3. The band said that when they finished the recordings they were shocked by the fact that the ten songs were in total less than half an hour of recording. Producer Rick Rubin, on the other hand, liked the result so much that he did not even ask the band to write and record more songs.
4. Because the album was so short, it fits into one side of a tape cassette. The band made sure that the album was also recorded on the other side of the cassette so that whoever listened to it could turn the cassette over and listen to it again.
5. This is Slayer's first album with legendary producer Rick Rubin, which greatly influenced the band's sound and development.
6. One of the things Rick Rubin persuaded the band to do is to give up the reverb effect altogether to produce a direct and sharp sound, just like the band's music.
7. This was the band's first album recorded during the daytime. They recorded their previous two albums late at night when no one was in the studio, to save money, since these two albums were self-funded.
8. The band intended to produce the fastest album ever. At that time they competed with "Metallica" and intended to produce the fastest and heaviest album. And so they did!
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9. The one who influenced the "disturbing" style of the album was mainly Jeff Hanneman who persuaded and encouraged the band members to listen to hardcore punk bands.
10. Rick Rubin did not know "Slayer" at all when he signed them to his private label "Def Jam Recordings", a year earlier. What's more, by then he had mostly produced rap and hip-hop bands like "Run DMC" and "Public Enemy".
11. The same year Rick Rubin produced the album, he was also responsible for producing the "Beastie Boys" debut album "Licensed to Ill".
12. Rubin also asked guitarist Kerry King to play the solo in the "Beastie Boys" song "No Sleep Till Brooklyn", taken from that album.
13. The release of the album was delayed mainly due to the opening track "Angel of Death" which deals with Joseph Mengele and the experiments he did during the Holocaust. Al Teller, president of the "Columbia" Company that was to distribute the album, was the son of Holocaust survivors and refused to market it.
14. The neo-Nazi image of the band following the song was fueled by the fact that the letter "S" in the band's logo is reminiscent of the one used by the Nazis for the "SS" logo.
15. In fact it was an anti-Nazi song. Guitarist Jeff Hanneman was influenced by his father's story, who was among the fighters in the invasion of Normandy in 1944. He was also inspired by books he read about Mengele.
16. The long and chilling scream from the second 0:19 to 0:27 in the song "Angel of Death", was performed by bassist and singer Tom Araya in just two takes. This is one of the most chilling and iconic screams in the metal world.
17. It was the last song the band played on stage during their performance in Inglewood, California on November 30, 2019.
18. Interestingly, the song was included in the soundtrack of the movie "Gremlins 2, Jackass: The Movie" and also in the movie "Jackass: The Movie".
19. The song can also be found in the computer game "Tony Hawk's Project 8".
20. The song "Raining Blood" can also be found in the game soundtracks "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City" and Guitar Hero "III: Legends of Rock".
21. The song "Altar of Sacrifice" was written based on an old song by the band called "Ice Titan". The original version can be found in a box from 2003 - "Soundtrack to the Apocalypse".
22. Guitarist Kerry King said he improvised all of his solos on the album, during the recordings. He was overwhelmed by the positive criticism towards him, because he felt that he was just fiddling with unrelated solos.
23. The song "Angel of Death" was sampled in the song "She Watch Channel Zero ?!" "by the rap band "Public Enemy". The song was also sampled by the industrial band - "KMFDM" in the song "Godlike".
24. The song "Raining Blood" from the album was also sampled by Lil 'Jon as part of the single "Stop Fuckin' Wit Me" from 2004.
25. Singer Tori Amos made a cover of the song "Raining Blood" and stretched it to a 6-and-a-half minute version, on the album "Strange Little Girls", released in 2001, after September 11, featuring her interpretation of men's songs from her point of view.
26. "Body Count" performed a cover of the songs "Raining Blood" and "Postmortem", on the album "Bloodlust" from 2016.
27. Drummer Dave Lombardo left the band during a tour that supported the album, due to a financial dispute. He returned to the band after producer Rick Robin convinced him to do so in 1987.
28. In 2004 "Slayer" played the album from beginning to end, on tour. In the song "Raining Blood", the last on the album, and the show, it was "raining blood" on the band, literally.
29. The drumming section in the opening of the song "Criminally Insane" was written by Jeff Hanneman.
30. The song's b-side included a remix in which drummer Dave Lombardo plays an electronic drum kit that triggered samples with a recording of him playing analog drums.
31. The whole band hated the cover of the same album by Lawrence “Larry” Carroll. They said that if they had known this would be the result, they would not have approached him in the first place.
32. Although the album was not played on radio stations at all, it is the band's first album to enter the US Billboard 200 and bring them recognition among the mainstream metal community.
33. It is one of the most important albums in metal and is ranked 6th on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the 100 greatest metal albums of all time.
34. In 2006 "Metal Hammer" magazine ranked the album at number one on the list of albums released in the last 20 years.
35. 'Kerrang!' Magazine defined the album as the heaviest album of all time.
36. In 2016 "Loudwire" magazine ranked the album in first place out of the band's 12 albums.
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