Just gave RIP a listen. Easily the best Megadeth album.
Now, I'm listening to Peace Sells.
Rust in Peace was my first Megadeth album and believe it or not I bought be because I thought the cover looked cool. I was totally taking a chance, because I had not heard one note of Megadeth up to that point.
The album blew my fucking mind - from there I worked my way backwards through their catalog, and to this day, while owning everything they've ever released, I don't think they've ever made a record as solid a Rust In Peace
Some really fun tracks in there to cover too. I was in a band for a while that did nothing but Metallica and Megadeth covers (on bass guitar) and some of those tracks are pretty challenging.
Interesting. The first time I heard that album, it turned me off. It was hard for me to get past the overall sound and enjoy just how good the songs were at the time. Kind of reminds me of Mindcrime, which sort of had similar production values in that it deliberately had a very cold, harsh production quality that I found very offputting at first. The much warmer sound on Countdown is what really pulled me in, hooked me, and made me a fan. Then Youthanasia came out, and I realized this was a band that had some serious good things to offer, and I went back and really got into RIP at that time. To me, RIP-Youthanasia (and included the Hidden Treasures EP) was the golden age for their sound. Other than a few songs here and there, I don't like the earlier albums. With Cryptic Writings, I felt like they went
too far in making a slick, polished, friendly-for-the-masses album, although there are definitely some strong tracks. Risk was a glorious experiment and comes in for me at #4 behind the "big 3" albums mentioned above. After that, it's sort of hit-and-miss, where on any given albums, I like some songs and skip others.