Disturbed / YMMV - TV Tropes

Anvilicious:
- The none-too-subtle anti-fascist themes in the "Land of Confusion" video. Even Draiman once admitted to finding the video strange. Chalk that one up to Todd McFarlane.
- The video for "The Vengeful One" is possibly even worse in this regard, this time targeting the news media; once again Draiman attributes that to the director, Phil Mucci.
- "Legion of Monsters" takes the viewpoint of "stop sensationalizing mass shooters/terrorists, or else it will create more people wanting their 15 minutes of fame by doing the exact same thing" and proceeds to beat you over the head with it.
- "Another Way To Die" says that "the time bomb is ticking" on global warming, but "no one is listening" and it's increasingly becoming too late to do anything about it.
- "Never Again" has all the subtlety of a carpet bombing. It's about the Holocaust, and how innocent people were "exterminated by the Nazi war machine" for no reason at all. The chorus chants "never again!" multiple times as a way to make it very clear what the song is about.
- "A Reason to Fight" is an Ode to Sobriety about how it's never too late to break an addiction, and that not doing so is going to cost you everything. The lyrics emphasize this, outright saying "this is nothing worth dying for." And just in case you missed it, The Stinger is a list of phone numbers and websites you can go to in case you need help.
- "In Another Time" laments for a time when "we weren't so blind" as to constantly watch everything online, or constantly look for more content to consume. The song compares the Internet to a drug, and how spending too much time online is going to destroy your mind by disconnecting you from reality.
Awesome Music:
- EVERY. SINGLE. SONG. But especially: "Stupify", "Awaken", "Just Stop", "Stricken", "Pain Redefined", "Inside the Fire", "Deceiver", "Perfect Insanity", "Divide".
- Any time you ask a large group of Disturbed fans their favorites, over half of them will list unknown or obscure songs from the back of the albums. This is a seven album discography, people. The band is that worshiped by their fanbase.
- "I'M AN INDESTRUCTIBLE MASTER OF WAAAAAAAAAR!"
- "Another Way to Die" features some of the vocal dynamics hinted at in "Deify" and "Land of Confusion", then turns them up to eleven. It starts with a grim vocal crooning opening, then the guitars start booming while Draiman shouts the things people have done to the Earth, building to an epic crescendo while the rest of the band sings back-up, after which Donegan gives us one of his most technical guitar solos in years. This is the kind of song that gets people into Disturbed.
  - From the same album, "Asylum". Now that's badass, if you don't agree listen to it. It carries so many aspects of Disturbed's distilled style that it may compete with DWTS for Signature Song.
- OOH WAH AH AH AH!!
  - The drum opening. Oh, God the drum opening. Way to define tribal percussion, Mike.
- "The Night" has one of those riffs that's hard not to fall in love with. Then you have David's dramatic bellowing vocals and the tight-as-always rhythm section for a great overall package.
- The fills in "Ten Thousand Fists" have just the right level of speed, melody and complexity to become downright orgasmic. Plus those catchy strings and David's epic shouting.
- "They aren't lost, you see/The truth will live in me!/Believe me NEVER AGAIN!"
- Their cover of "Shout". Aside from just being a great re-imagining of the original, the couple of shout-outs to early '90s rap are just too cool. It may also be the only time you'll hear "Ice Ice Baby" sound badass.
- Their phenomenal operatic cover of Simon and Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence"! With a slow build from David's surprisingly soft voice and single piano to his trademark thunderous singing combined with piano, timpani, and strings, this version easily does the original justice and then some.
- "Are You Ready", from their latest album Evolution, is the same fast and heavy sound fans know and love, but with a new spin to make it stand out from before.
- "Don't Tell Me" off of Divisive is a standout amongst an album filled with great songs. Not only does Dan Donegan shred off one of his best solos, but Draiman's voice pairs very well with Ann Wilson, who still sounds fantastic even at 72 years old.
Awesome Music: Pro Wrestling: "Glass Shatters". Ironically, they (or at least David) views this song as an Old Shame.
Broken Base:
- Fans of Fuzz vs. fans of Moyer—as far as the Fuzz camp is concerned, Moyer is a mediocre bassist at best and a Replacement Scrappy at worst. Moyer fan argue that the newer bassist is more technically skilled, more useful for his back-up singing and overall better-suited to the band's style. It all boils down to whether you prefer picking or finger-style bass work.
- There's also the division between the faction that believes The Sickness was the group's best album, and that nothing that came afterwards can compare vs. everyone else.
- "Fire It Up", a song off of Immortalized, has split the fanbase apart. Some fans love it for being a song about weed that isn't rap or reggae, while other fans have straight up cancelled their preorders because of it. Even fans who don't have a particularly strong opinion were still shocked by its tone and how it conflicts with pretty much every other song the band has done before.
- Their cover of "The Sound of Silence". Fans call it a surprising, yet well done cover that shows the diversity the band is capable of. Detractors will tell you the very idea is misguided at best and a straight-up insult to the original at worst.
- Evolution is so much different from previous albums with a much softer tone and less heavy songs. Many old school fans see it as boring and lacking the same edge that the albums that came before it had, while other fans see it more as an evolution of their style and welcome the new lyrical and thematic changes.
Chorus-Only Song: Despite "Down with the Sickness" being mention, "Glass Shatters" is an egregious case, with "I'm bringing the limit inside you! Stop begging someone to hide you!" showing up about 10 times.
Complete Monster: Ten Thousand Fists' "Land of Confusion": The Fat Cat embodies the worst of war profiteering, ordering his army to unleash mass death and destruction across the world purely for monetary gain. Enjoying wine and cigars while watching his war machine bring hell on earth, the Fat Cat's atrocities force the Guy to lead a violent revolution against his tyranny, which the Fat Cat tries to crush personally once the people who have suffered under him kick in his door.
Covered Up:
- Most people who haven't seen Queen of the Damned don't know that Jonathan Davis composed "Forsaken". This sprouted from legal difficulties between the soundtrack publisher, Warner Bros. Records, and Davis' obligations to Sony as a member of Korn.
- While both versions are fairly well known, Disturbed's rendition of "Land of Confusion" is much more popular than the original version by Genesis. Much of this is owed to the Genesis version's parent album, Invisible Touch, being such a huge hair-splitter among fans that it served as a catalyst in the backlash against frontman Phil Collins, which was still going on when the Disturbed cover came out in 2006.
Epic Riff: The opening riff of "Down with the Sickness". Also "Indestructible", "Guarded", "Divide", "The Night", "I'm Alive", "Ten Thousand Fists" and "Inside the Fire" have awesome opening riffs. The solos are strong as well.
Fandom Rivalry: To some degree, The Dillinger Escape Plan. The situation with that band was mainly based on a misunderstanding, and truth-be-told the DEP has been rather civil about it. Someone informed Disturbed that the group's guitarist had been mocking them for their elaborate stage set-up, when really he was merely making an off-hand remark about how little they themselves bother rehearsing. As the guitarist from DEP put it, when Disturbed use a pyro onstage, they don't get set on fire by it, as has happened at DEP gigs. Draiman later said, "No beef with them. I think the press misquoted them once. We cleared it up." However, not longer than a few months after Draiman said that on his Twitter, Greg Puciato ignites it again on his.
Fan Nickname: "The Guy" has been dubbed "Morbus" (Latin for "Sickness") by some of the Disturbed1s.
Fanon:
- There was an old belief going around that the Believe album's interlocking religious symbols somehow signified the four band members' actual religions. All that's known is that Draiman comes from an Orthodox Jewish background and that Donegan is Irish (and therefore most likely of Catholic descent). Does that mean Fuzz or Wengren are Pagan or Islamic?
- Despite popular belief, no, it's not Draiman's head on the cover. It was designed by Paul Brown, a graphic designer most known for his work on Marilyn Manson's Antichrist Superstar. He used an old birthing model (found at a flea market, probably formerly of an obstetrician's office), but couldn't find anyone willing to pose for it, so he shaved his head and did it himself. In the words of Draiman:
  What the hell is that?
Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
- While the title track of Indestructible is considered So Bad, It's Good or Narm Charm by many, members of the United States Armed Forces, specifically the Marine Corps have latched on to it as an anthem, taking it literally.
- For whatever reason, the band's strongest following outside of the U.S. seems to be Oceania, leading them to run one of the longest legs of their Indestructible tour through Australia and bring an MAAW IV festival to New Zealand (MAAW V will extend this to the entirety of Oceania). In fact, the band has consistently charted highest outside N.A in Australia and New Zealand^note, with those two being the first places for Asylum to go Gold, faster than the U.S. Amusingly, the band is actually rather popular in Germany (or at least more-so than the rest of Europe).
Growing the Beard: The fantastic leap the band made between The Sickness to Believe in terms of musicality, lyrical content and overall quality.
Harsher in Hindsight: The music video for "The Vengeful One" depicts The Guy murdering news reporters while they are broadcasting. Two months after the video came out, a news reporter and photojournalist were murdered during a live interview.
Heartwarming in Hindsight: In "My Child", Draiman sings about how he got a girl pregnant and about his determination to become a father, which was quickly crushed when she suffered a miscarriage. As of 2013, Draiman married ex-WWE diva Lena Yada, who then conceived and bore a son, Samuel Bear Isamu Draiman. David would be so proud to become a daddy.
Memetic Mutation: OOOOOHHH WAAAAAA AAAAAAHHH AAAAAAHHH AAAAAAHHH!!!
Misaimed Fandom: For some reason, after the start of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the comment section of the YouTube video for "Open Your Eyes" began accumulating a disquieting amount of COVID-19 conspiracy theorists. For the record, at least Draiman and Moyer are taking COVID seriously.
Misattributed Song:
- An unusually high number of people believe they did a song called "Killing You Now". It was actually done by a band called Fear of Sound. Sometimes, it's even misattributed to tool.
- "Blood In My Eyes" was a song purported to have been a collaboration between them with Limp Bizkit and Godsmack (the bands have never so much as been in the same room together). The song was made by an indie nu-metal group called Dime Store Hoods.
Narm Charm: The Sickness (especially the child abuse segment of "Down with the Sickness"), thanks to its excessively dark lyrics, carpet F-bombing, and David's unabashed screaming and raging, can sound overdramatic, stupidly aggressive, or just plain ridiculous. Later albums tone the screaming down a bit but keep the overblown angst, often take a message and bash the listener over the head with it, and include unironic Badass Boasts belted out in the most over-the-top way possible. The attitude, the bombastic gusto, and total disregard for subtlety are the reasons why many fans love the band.
Nausea Fuel: Mike took a crash course in why it's not okay to crap in the Minnie Winnie-provided toilets.
Never Live It Down:
- Draiman's quite aware of his status as "The Oh-wa-ah-ah-ah guy", and claims the origin of the 'Down With The Sickness' noise wasn't inspired by a trip to the Chicago zoo...
  David: That noise is gonna be etched on my goddamn tombstone... "Here lies David Draiman, Ooh WA AH AH AH!"
- The distinctive booming sound to Mike's intro on Down with the Sickness was achieved through applying coated, 2-ply heads to the toms. While he feels this fits with the identity of the song, he's been increasingly trying to get away from this so-called signature sound, as his patterns have become more crisp/developed over the years (he believes the brutal thudding on the early work tended to bury whatever he was playing).
Nightmare Fuel:
- "Down with the Sickness". The child abuse segment, while quite narm-y to some, can be extremely unsettling to others, particularly to those who actually have experienced child abuse. The rest of the song is not much better. Monotonous whispering is creepy, sudden angry yell will make the listener jump out of their skin; now if you switch between it again and again... The frenzied riff and Drone of Dread help a lot. All in all, that's how you write a Sanity Slippage Song.
  you've woken up the demon IN ME!!!
- The Sickness, as a whole, is a terrifying album, given its much darker lyrical content than their later albums.
- The Guy is Nightmare Fuel incarnate. Those evil glowing red eyes, and that GRIN. Though the fact he's almost always fightning against tyranny and corruption might be mitigating it.
- "My Child" from the Asylum album. Begins with a baby screaming and crying, ends with a heart monitor flatline.
Older Than They Think:
- Conceived in the late 90's, The Guy is the oldest "The Guy" out there. Try telling this to an I Wanna Be the Guy fan.
- Ballads are not new to them: Darkness was released all the way back in 2002, with the Believe album.
Periphery Demographic: Their target audience is mainly young men, 13-30. Yet the female fanbase has come to at least equal the size of the male portion. They've also weirdly enough found a home with the parents of Disturbed1s (who may have casually heard their kids playing the music) along with the grown-up Disturbed1s' kids (not just adolescent boys who think the swearing is cool, but tots about 6-8 who like the melodies). Finally, they've been accepted by several sects of the the classic/traditional metal children of the 70's who grew up listening to the early speed metal and NWOBHM bands. Because of all this Draiman will sometimes pull children on-stage whenever he notices them singing all the words.
I want you to know that as a responsible adult, I don't condone those sorts of words coming out of the mouths of children such as yourself. So, do me a favor, okay: for the rest of the set if you know the songs well enough, and you know a bad word's coming up, earmuffs, okay?
Replacement Scrappy: Averted but still asserted. The Fuzz fans generally preferred Moyer's finger-style bass work, and like to hold the fact that John uses a pick against him (though he can play without one just fine). Other segments don't like how much he seems to follow Dan's lead so much (though Fuzz did this as well). The truth is, he's happened to have some bad luck with recording: on Ten Thousand Fists many of the songs were already thought out (though not written) with rumors that some of the bass lines were written by Fuzz; for Indestructible he had to abruptly leave the session to be with his pregnant wife (keeping in touch through the internet and still been writing bass parts while away), forcing him to play catch-up when he got back^note. Asylum is essentially the first album that he's been fully present throughout, showing his full ability. Moyer was absent again for the recording of Immortalized.
Signature Song:
- Draiman has referred to "Down with the Sickness" as "our 'Rock and Roll All Nite'". Despite its popularity, the band used to start shows instead of ending with it, preferring to close with "Stupify".
- While he's aware of the standing of "Down with the Sickness", Draiman's early favorite was "Remember". After Asylum, however, he's been rethinking this stance.
- As of Immortalized, the band is often associated with their cover of "The Sound of Silence". The cover has in fact OUTSOLD "Sickness"^note, it also doesn't help that the cover is being used heavily in mainstream media. The band was also Grammy nominated for the song when it was performed live on Conan. And it even made it into Rock Band 4 as a DLC track, an inclusion that most cover songs don't receive.
So Okay, It's Average:
- Despite its success on the charts and on radio, this has been the common reaction among the Disturbed1's to "Another Way To Die". Opinions range from people who don't like being preached at, people who think it's a decent song but don't believe it deserves single status and people who hate it because of its single status (as opposed to the other songs on the album that could have become singles).
- The reaction towards the subsequent album as a whole. Even fans who loved them for keeping the same sound felt it sounded too much the same and that it was time for something new from the band. A lot of people weren't impressed with the politics and preaching in the lyrics either.
- Amongst those who didn’t flat out despise the album, Evolution is this for some. While not without merit, some felt that the mix of heavy songs and slow ballads made the album feel disjointed and unbalanced in comparison to their previous efforts.
Tear Jerker: Now has its own page.

YMMV / Disturbed

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