I feel like Mike has found a series that won't get repetitive or boring.

“Peace Sells,” But Who’s Buying This Book? Lol.

The only explanation is the quality control was done by Lars Ulrich

The people who made these must still be alive. Would be amazing to get them to talk about these.

It's nice they let a deaf person write the tab for these songs.

Peace sells but who's tabbing

I think the person who transcribed this said, “so far, so good, so what.”

Who hired these hacks to make these books? And who hired the guys who hired the hacks? Like, the publishing industry you wouldn't think would be easy to get into, but apparently it's run by completely incompetent idiots.

At 6:19 had me actually bust out laughing 😂 3rd and 12th fretted chord! 😂 the guys who wrote this book had to be joking!

Chris Poland is a bad boy. His legato was so sick on those couple albums (and he was ripping lines that smoothly on a ton of smack, somehow). This attempt at a transcription probably turned a whole generation of players off from learning Megadeth songs lol

Sometimes I wonder if the guys transcribing the tabs didn't like metal. Knowing that a young guitarist aspiring to play these intricate guitar solos and riffs, are going to read tab because they don't know the theory. Laughing the whole time.

One thing the younger guys don’t know when critiquing these tabs, is how hard it was to actually hear these parts back in the day. With cassettes and vinyls you couldn’t really rewind the tape/vinyl that much. It was hard to find the right spot and the cassettes and vinyls broke down if you looped a part too many times. Also the sound systems and headphones were more primitive.

you should record the full song playing this scuffed tab and just upload it as "PEACE SELLS COVER"

Really loving this series and man… nice tone u got going there!!

Two of my favourite tab books is Kiko Loureiro’s open source and no gravity, I’ve only got one or two songs into each, but after seeing all these videos of incorrect transcribing, I trust the Kiko ones because I know Kiko himself worked closely with Levi clay on those song books

Thank you. Peace sells is one of the greatest metal/thrash songs ever. I was 14 or 15 when it came out,I'm now 50yrs old. It still has the same impact it did the first time I heard it.

Mike, you should add a spin off to this series, entitled “where are they now?” Where you interview the people responsible for these awful official tab books. Ask them what they used to to come to their conclusions, were they up against an impossible deadline, just what happened?!

I love this series so much, I hope it goes on for a long time 😁

A lot of the impossible fingering looks like the auto-tab conversion you get in some notation software. You start with the classic notation and the software just converts the pitches into TAB. Then you'd usually correct that manually - or you end of with these stretches :D

When you said that 2 to eight stretch you were NOT wrong, first saw that part on the community post you made before releasing this video and I had my guitar in hand at the time so I tried it and holy shit my nerves made it very clear that they did not like that

Oh man I remember wanting that tab book so bad from my local music store but 13 year old me didn't have the $24.95 to make it happen. 25 years later I realize it was a blessing.

I'm glad you're doing these videos because I remember really well trying to play along with the GnR tab book back in the early 90's. I would think, either I suck, or these are wrong. Because some of them just didn't sound right or were too hard to play.

This series has been a real eye opener on why I own a 2 ft stack of guitar magazines and only 4 tab books

I appreciate you making these videos. It will help a lot beginners to avoid these pitfalls and instead learn by ear 🙂

Idk if I can ever trust a tab book after these

At least they didn’t misspell it on the cover as ‘Piece Cells’. So far, so good…..so wrong!

I LOVE these bad tab book videos. Makes me wanna write a bad tab book on my own...

Love the part around the 4:30 mark making use of melancholies eye roll. Great stuff.

Who made these horrible tabs? I'd really love to see the process. Why it always sounds like if a beginner tried to learn a song by ear, put it on paper and someone without any knowledge about the stuff just published it....

Yo I’m learning peace sells with my guitar teacher

I'm loving this series Mike!

Now you’re just teasing me! 😜 Loved to hear some Poland legato, and that Mockingbird is a beast 🤘🤘

I love these vids. Quick question, where do you order these old tab books? I have some old ones (actually good ones) that are beat up and would like to replace them. Thanks.

The laughs sounds for your shirt sticker blunder is always a treat. Halarious!

Cannot wait to hear from SFSGSW. My absolute favorite Megadeth album, and hugely underrated.

😆 love it dude this series is so entertaining and relatable!

Shout out for the Mellon Collie T-Shirt. One of the greatest albums ever and the soundtrack to my 16th year on the planet back in 95-96. And the Atari joystick is class.

Really awesome video man, thanks for breaking these down, I love the way Mustaine plays

mike i love this series! and also... you should have left the sticker!

Thank you for content, Mike!

Thanks for this. I’ve been playing guitar for over 30 years and bought many of these tab books back in the day. I used to get so frustrated because I often couldn’t get the songs to sound right. Later on I realised that I often over complicated my playing. I’d watch somebody else play a piece and it would sound better yet their playing seemed simplified. I blame my own naivety and reliance on these tab books for this. I’d be interested to know what you think of the Ozzy Osborn Randy Rhodes Tribute tab book if you’ve looked at that one.

I own a good number of tab books but check KZfaq more often because of this series. Thanks Mike!

That tone is like the first Death Angel album

Finally! A tab book I don't own! How about the Van Halen 1,1984 and 5150 books next? Or the Ozzy Osbourne ,Blizzard of Oz, and the Diary Of a Madman books?

LMAO, can't believe you can't do that 10/12/3 chord stretch!!! 😂 I remember in one the guitar mags (long long ago), they showed some dude with a long finger extension spanning 8-10 frets!!! Hindsight is 20/20, but would have been cool to have someone in the studios with these rockstars filming/documenting how they play the songs. Would benefit the masses and maybe themselves when they revisit old material!

Looking back its pretty clear that a lot of these tab books were transcribed by people that either did not listen to this type of music or actually play guitar. Chris is a great guitar player. That first Damn the Machine LP is a real gem.

Nice MCIS shirt. Speaking of, any plans to do an SP tab book review? I remember looking through some of them back in the day (probably SD/MCIS) & going "wtf" just at the sheer layout- like, some places where they'd have 4-6 guitar parts written, but then other parts where huge chunks just seemed to be missing? Or am I just remembering wrong? XD

My favorite riff is the Black Friday "Killer, intruder, homicidal man" verse riff. I also really like both Poland solos in that song.

You seem to be going through all the tab books I bought, and still have! No wonder I lost faith in my own ability, we were so naive back then. I was so new to guitar and just assumed as these were 'official' they would be correct.

Great stuff, Mike! Minnesota strong. Ellefson is from MN. I was more proud of that fact before....well....just before.

keep up the great videos man 👍

man loving this series. This is hilarious and brings childhood memories

I just bought that shirt as well lol, I found it weird when I saw you wearing it during the Livestream while I was wearing it

That pumpkins t-shirt is so cool

I love these videos not only because they are entertaining but I also realise these songs are far easier to play than I initially thought.

I really dig this series a lot! I got the tab book for SP Siamese Dream when I was a beginner and it seemed to be wonky af. I don't know if I just sucked so much or if the tab was just rubbish. Unfortunately I don't have it anymore so perhaps I'll get another one and find out.

I seen the Smashing Pumpkins for that tour back in the day, Garbage opened. It was a great show at the San Jose Arena.

I have a whole pile of Tab books & magazines that are pretty much all wrong.

Very good job Brother 🤘🤘🎸🎸

This series is eye opening... I learned everything from tab and always wondered why I couldn't make it sound like the album.... Had no idea that official tab would be wrong.. I even remember downloading tabs for books i got rid of and seeing they were so different that I just didn't try them cause i thought they were wrong... i mean maybe they were but probably not as wrong as some of the books i used.

That book u self print or buy?? I Never seen book tab... I need this one just for my collection 🥰🥰🥰

I've been waiting years for someone to figure out Chris Polands lead sound on this album. Every note has a little swell, sorta like an envelaope filter or slight wah to it.

Is there a publisher that you recommend that prints tabs correctly? Because I'm just starting out and really don't want to get burned. Thanks

How do tab books that are published more recently compare to the oldies? I recently bought four Exodus books they're incredible, but they were tabbed by Kragen Lum. Have other tab books improved as well?

You have opened my eyes and my ears. These books are hit or miss.

wow, what a cool looking guitar! what BCR model is it?

This series are absolutely amazing!

What are the chances you can make a video where you show the way Chris Poland plays the first solo? I can't seem to find any good tabs...

I honestly feel bad most players during the 80s 90s and 00s had to grow up with shit like this. This is an injustice to rising guitar players. Every guitar player out there that self-taught with no instructor, I applaud u!! How do u do that???

Two things, first that guitar is amazing!! Next, when I was 14, in ‘94-‘95, my best friend had those mega/Metallica books, when I first started I tried learning by borrowing them.. I couldn’t make anything sound right. This took 2 years from my playing. I thought that some could, some could not. Eventually I learned by ear… and used these books as wall decorations… These books, the newbie gear starter pack of the time, the awful 10w with 6” speaker… cost nearly $600 books and all, stole 2 years from me. Thinking I just couldn’t do it. Nothing sounded right. Two years later, a friend helped me with a setup, another friend loaned me a digitech processor, and my ear garnered me a sound I could deal with. This lead to 4 years of playing with headphones that changed my life. I bought my 8 year old a mini strat, fixed it up, a boss katana mk2 50w, and he is more capable than I was 3 years in… The 16 year old me, playing that fixed up guitar, digitech processor, cranked headphones, playing the scorpions: the zoo whitesnake: crying in the rain I finally felt it. Then I started trying what was to me crazy hard stuff Megadeth and Metallica. Come to find out megadeth was infinitely more difficult. To me Poland stuff was harder to learn by ear than Friedman’s. Today I own 8 guitars, 5 heads, a rack full of gear, like 20 pedals. Those stupid books, and the garbage newbie gear nearly derailed me.

I like how you chose the bc rich for this. Thats good attention to detail haha

DO A PART 2 PLEASEEEEE!!!

9:59 I actually felt the same since first Chris' lead. I felt that they changed it to Marty like style. What was year of original release for this tab book?

6:01 - That is some hilarious shit right there. Just imagine them trying to play those notes live.

nice guitar you have there. did you get this guitar new?

me: pfft, sounded like Korn him: sounds more like a Korn riff oh my

Is there any good tab metal books you would recommend?

thanks for bringing this to light.. i grew up in the 80s and i also looked at the tabs as gospel.. i am 47 now, and i realize how bad some of the tabs were and inaccurate- i have many of the old mags still.. i feel vindicated in a way now becuase i can say, i couldnt play these things back in the days not only becuase of lack of experience but becuase the tabs were messed up. :P

You know I've got a couple of Metallica tab books and the youthansia tab book. I'm half wondering if I should just Toss em, what do y'all think?

4:16 had me dying 🤣 I need to go cleanse my brain

Omg these vids are the best!

I bought a guitar magazine in the 90s that included transcriptions for the entire vocal parts along with the guitar transcriptions. And this was for songs from bands like Slayer, Sepultura, and Napalm Death! I have no idea why they thought that was necessary!

Have you ever looked at the Hal Leonard books with play along tracks I know they have Motley Crue, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest and several other guitar books with play along tracks

I love this series! As a pianist, I can relate. Many of the piano sheet music is usually just as inaccurate.

I just bought that shirt at target about a week ago!

First song ever learn on guitar & a friend made it easy for my to learn .

When I first started guitar some of the transcriptions made me scratch my head. Good to know I'm not crazy

Can you do the natural harmonics part on mary janes???? Please!!!# Saludos desde Argentina

oh god, I have that book and many others of the same company (it was called Cherry Lane if I recall correctly), bought somewhere around late '90. I knew that something was wrong and it wasn't me!!! BTW, after all of these years I'm still wondering if the guitar rhythm in the last part of slayer's postmortem was translated correctly, it's 240bpm, very fast to play and hearing the exact rhythm on the record is hard. Check it out! Love your videos, cheers!

Loving this series.

Hey, I have this book. I still remember buying it 20 years ago.

the 3-12-10 chord at 6:30 only reinforced my suspicion that all those old tabs were transposed maybe via software from sheet music to tab :) Guitar Pro could trip you up like that in funny ways as well.

What about the Ride the Lightning book? I have it somewhere but I can't remember if it's as bad as Puppets or Justice.

you should do a gear review on your Jackson

When i listen to this song i can hear the octave above the root note in the power chords

Much like yourself, I spent a lot of time trying and failing back in the day with the idea that "it must be true, 'cause the book says so". But even back then I sort of had an incling that they were kind of screwing around sometimes, because I read an interview with a band in a guitar magazine (I think it was Radiohead, but I'm not sure as it's 20+ years ago :p), where the guitar player told how the people transcribing their album actually contacted him to explain certain chordshapes he used, because they couldn't get their heads around it and couldn't get it quite right.

10:52 In fairness to the book, that's not what that means. It's a diamond, not a normal whole note. The diamond indicates that its not really a pitched note, but rather a more low-mid range unpitched note. The same way x notes are used in vocals to indicate shouts that aren't "sung" or pitched, the diamond is just a whole note version of those x notes. (Though sometimes you will see strange bubble letter looking x notes instead, like a lot of music notation, it's not always consistent with *all* which one to use) though, in the spirit of shitting on the book, I'll add that they forgot to add a "fall" to that part.

Where do I get the correct tabs for this?

Thank you dude I was about to but one of those which is EVH and pantera and iron maiden

I have these damn books. Had no idea they were wrong. Where can I find the most accurate tabs for all my old metal artists???