Elect the Dead

The initial single from the album was a 2-track promo including "Empty Walls" and "The Unthinking Majority", released on September 10. Tankian immediately appeared on MTV's "You Rock The Deuce" program. Meanwhile, a music-video of "Feed Us" was released in Sweden[11] and on UK MTV.[12] The album was released October 22, 2007, and opened at #4 with 66,000 USA units sold according to the Billboard 200 trade listing.[13] By September 2010 the album had sold 319,000 copies total.[14]

Music-videos of the album's songs were each filmed by discrete directors. Tankian revealed: "I asked each of the directors for their visual interpretation of my work. They were asked not to write treatments and that they could make whatever they liked. The results have been overwhelmingly amazing".[15] Initially some videos were released as 'limited edition' premiums. All videos were later freely offered on Tankian's website and his YouTube channel. Some of these "official videos" were alternate versions released one version at a time- suggesting incrementally evolving narrative.

Collectible versions of the album include an instrumental disk offered by Serjical Strike/Reprise Records; and the "final master" from Reprise intended for specific journalists and reviewers. That embargoed disk was labeled "Smart Talk" [a coded reference to the artist's own name].[16] Previously an undated, un-mastered 'Smart Talk' promo featured these same 'final versions' of the songs; but the sequence of tracks ten and eleven was juxtaposed.

Tankian stated that some of these songs were new, and others had developed earlier. An acoustic version of "Blue" was released on the album's 'special edition bonus disc'. The original version appeared on System Of A Down's fourth demo tape but had no other recordings of the song were known to exist.

The title track was also recorded by System of a Down during the recording sessions for Mezmerize and Hypnotize but this version remains unreleased.

It's very wide sounding — lots of different sounding instruments. The excitement I had making this record was the same excitement I had making the first System record.

— Serj Tankian

An Elect the Dead tour commenced October 12, 2007 at Chicago's Vic Theater. Tankian cautioned fans this production featured a new band Flying Cunts of Chaos (aka The F.C.C.) which was not promoting the System of a Down.

In 2009 Tankian did a symphonic tour with an orchestra, in order to perform symphonic renditions of most of the songs from Elect the Dead. A recording of this tour titled Elect the Dead Symphony was released February 23, 2010 in the USA.

All tracks are written by Serj Tankian.

• All Songs Written & Performed by Serj Tankian (guitars, bass, piano, vocals, synthesizers, drum programming, melodica, bells, and various tone generating beauties) - Stunning Suppository Sounds (BMI)
• All songs recorded at Serjical Strike Studios
• Produced by Serj Tankian
• Engineered by Dan Monti & Serj Tankian
• Mastered by Vlado Meller at Sony Music Studios in New York, NY

• A&R Craig Aaronson & George Tonikian
• Original Artwork Provided by Sako Shahinian
• Album Packaging Design by Sako Shahinian
• Digipack Album Packaging Design by Keith Aazami
• Photography by Greg Watermann
• Worldwide Management Dave Holmes and Darin Harmon
• Booking (US) Don Muller at CAA
• Booking (Europe) Emma Banks at CAA
• Legal Don Passman and Gene Salomon at Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown, Inc.
• Business Management David Weise at DW & Associates

• Elect the Dead at Serjical Strike Records