Roadrunner is celebrating more than 30 years of music with the release of a box set, XXX: Three Decades of Roadrunner Records, hitting the market October 1.
The set, to be released in America and abroad, is a pretty good summation of the label’s beginnings as an underground label, their rise to one of America’s premier metal labels, and the gold and platinum success they’ve gone on to achieve since their humble beginnings. The label, started in the Netherlands in 1980, had the initial goals of importing music from American metal bands to Europe. The group’s stretch would later expand internationally with a client roster represented below.
The four discs are separated more or less chronologically, with the likes of Mercyful Fate, Life of Agony and Cynic (what, no Exhorder?), then moves on to bands like Sepultura, Machine Head and Fear Factory, and their current roster. The fourth disc is more rock-oriented, signaling the shift that the label has undergone via the likes of Nickelback and Lynyrd Skynyrd. The comp also includes several bands that weren’t on Roadrunner in the States, like Heaven and Hell and Down.
While Roadrunner has gone through some managerial changes in recent months, along with various layoffs, this compilation is a worthy audio document of one of metal’s best-known labels through their birth, growth, and as some purists would probably argue, their decline. Even the most devout metal fan would have to admit that Roadrunner has been a core metal label that’s hosted some of the best bands in metal throughout its history.
The set is slated to include:
Disc 1 – Foundations
1. Mercyful Fate – “Evil”
2. Whiplash – “Power Thrashing Death”
3. King Diamond – “Abigail”
4. Carnivore – “Carnivore”
5. Obituary – “Slowly We Rot”
6. Annihilator – “Alison Hell”
7. Deicide – “Sacrificial Suicide”
8. Suffocation – “Infecting The Crypts”
9. Biohazard – “Punishment”
10. Type O Negative – “Christian Woman”
11. Brujeria – “Matando Güeros”
12. Cynic – ”Veil of Maya”
13. Life of Agony – “Through and Through”
14. Treponem Pal – “Excess and Overdrive”
Disc 2 – Horns Up
1. Nailbomb – “Wasting Away”
2. Machine Head – “Imperium”
3. Dog Eat Dog – “No Fronts (Jam Master Jay’s Main Edit)”
4. Death – “Crystal Mountain”
5. Sepultura – “Roots Bloody Roots”
6. Coal Chamber – “Loco”
7. Soulfly – “Eye For an Eye”
08. Fear Factory – “Shock”
09. Slipknot – “Spit It Out”
10. Spineshank – “New Disease”
11. Chimaira – “Pure Hatred”
12. 36 Crazyfists – “Bloodwork”
13. Ill Nino – “What Comes Around”
Disc 3 – And Metal for All
1. Killswitch Engage – “My Last Serenade”
2. Trivium – “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr”
3. DevilDriver – “I Could Care Less”
4. Cradle of Filth – “Nymphetamine Fix”
5. Hatebreed – “Destroy Everything”
6. Cavalera Conspiracy – “Inflikted”
7. Roadrunner United – “The Dagger”
8. Porcupine Tree – “Fear of a Blank Planet”
9. Dream Theater – “On the Backs of Angels”
10. Opeth – “Heir Apparent”
11. Megadeth – “Head Crusher”
12. Down – “Witchtripper”
13. Heaven and Hell – “Bible Black”
14. Gojira – “L’enfant Sauvage”
Disc 4 – Rock for the Ages
1. Nickleback – “Side of a Bullet”
2. Jerry Cantrell – “Anger Rising”
3. Stone Sour – “30/30-150″
4. Karma to Burn – “Ma Petite Mort”
5. Glassjaw – “Pretty Lush”
6. The Dresden Dolls – “Girl Anachronism”
07. Airbourne – “No One Fits Me (Better Than You)”
08. Murderdolls – “Dead in Hollywood”
09. Theory of a Deadman – “Bad Girlfriend”
10. Black Stone Cherry – “Lonely Train”
11. Korn feat. Skrillex – “Get Up!”
12. Rush – “Headlong Flight”
13. Lynyrd Skynyrd – “Still Unbroken”
