- Approval of God: In terms of their cover versions, Wu-Tang Clan encouraged them to record "Shame on a Nigga", and Ozzy Osbourne guested with them on a live performance of their version of "Snowblind".
- Better Export for You: The Japanese release of the debut album, which includes the beloved tracks "Marmalade" and "Störagéd".
- Content Leak: The band named their 3rd album Steal This Album! which refers to how unfinished versions of the tracks got leaked before the album, originally titled 'Toxicity II', was leaked several months before it became commercially available.
- Covers Always Lie: One of the Aerials singles includes an early mix of "Streamline" (missing Daron's backing vocals), but credits it as the 'album version'. The album in question was The Scorpion King soundtrack - Steal This Album wouldn't be released for few months. An unmastered version of this could also be heard on the Toxicity II bootleg.
- Creative Differences: The core of why they have recorded only two new songs in over twenty years, and will probably never release another album. It stretches all the way back to the Hypnotize/Mezmerize creative process, as Daron's increasingly autocratic stranglehold on the writing process and insistence on assuming more and more vocal duties pissed everyone off, especially Serj, who had plenty of material of his own to contribute but eventually said "fuck it" and stopped even trying to submit ideas because he knew Daron would shoot them down. Daron himself was annoyed with Shavo, whose stagnating technical ability and sloppiness in the studio eventually led him to track most of the bass himself, as he didn't want to deal with cleaning up and doctoring Shavo's sloppy takes just to have a presentable final product. John was something of the Only Sane Man, as he tried his best to stay out of Serj and Daron's power struggle and did his best to keep the peace whenever things started to spiral out of control, but he was just as sick of Daron's tyranny and Shavo's incompetence as the others. By the time the album was tracked, mixed, and mastered, the band was barely functioning, and they just barely dragged themselves through the start of the touring cycle before going on hiatus a year in because the damage was done and there was no salvaging their relationships. The time apart only widened the gulf - Serj was much happier with his solo material and viewed System of a Down as a card to swipe for a massive payout, while Daron and the others all found themselves on better terms, but just could not bring Serj to care about doing anything new as a band, which became a status quo that has continued unabated.
- Cut Song: Demo Tape 3 had "Ginger" aka "To The Sky", a jam session that appeared as the third track on the promo releases, but was removed from the final release.
- The self-titled album was initially going to included "Storaged", as seen on this in-house promo
. It was replaced by a newly written song, "Suggestions". It did however appear on the Japanese version (along with Marmalade) as well as the US version of the Sugar single. It was belatedly released in the UK as the b-side of the "Toxicity" 7" single. - The entirety of the "Toxicity II" bootleg was outtakes from Toxicity. All but two of these ("Cherry" and "Outer Space") were reworked, together with a few others, as "Steal This Album".
- The "Mezmerize/Hypnotize" sessions produced an additional track, "Hezze", which has never been released, but is a holy grail to collectors since it was announced.
- The self-titled album was initially going to included "Storaged", as seen on this in-house promo
- Genre Label Rejection: System of a Down is among the bands credited as being an early Nu Metal act who isn't fond of being identified as such, with guitarist Damon Malakian specifically saying he didn't like the nu-metal "Drop-A 7-string" guitar sound. Serj Tankian additionally rejected the classification of Progressive Metal because to him, the band writes Pop songs, just with more offbeat instrumentation.
- He Also Did:
- Daron provided his signature riffs for the Linkin Park song "Rebellion".
- Meanwhile, Serj would perform as lead vocalist on the cover of the Blue Öyster Cult hit song "Godzilla", as part of the soundtrack for Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).
- Daron provided his signature riffs for the Linkin Park song "Rebellion
- Missing Episode: "Suggestions" is the only track on the first album period to not have a circulating demo. This is because the band wrote it the same month they started recording the album.
- Similarly, there are no early mixes of "Ego Brain" or "Roulette" from "Steal This Album". This is because - unlike the rest of that album - the songs weren't originally Toxicity outtakes, but instead newly recorded for it. "Ego Brain" specifically was written as a new song, and "Roulette" was a very early song of the band's that had never previously been formally recorded.
- On the above note, the so-called full-band "Roulette" from 1995 is one of the most infamous 'missing episodes' amongst fans. Due to its simple arrangement and sought-after status, fans have attempted to recreate it many times, which are often passed off as the original. If there is a genuine recording of it, it has yet to be verified.
- No Export for You: All members being Armenian or of Armenian descent, the band refused to play a show in Turkey in 1998, because of the country's government denial of the Armenian genocide of 1915. They have never rescheduled a show there since.
- The Pete Best: Prior to recording their self-titled debut album, the original drummer, Andy Khachaturian, had to leave the band in mid-1997 due to a hand injury. While he took part in various other music projects since his departure, he never reached anywhere near the success that System of a Down had.
- Referenced by…:
- Illumination Entertainment famously used "Bounce" in The Secret Life of Pets, and followed that up with "Chop Suey" in Sing 2.
- Tempest (2011): In Tempest Revealed, Rio is listening to "Chop Suey" when Tempest tries to talk to him before leaving for Coral Straits.
- What Could Have Been:
- There's a lot of material that never got officially released by the band, mostly appearing on file-sharing networks and bootleg albums.
- Daron and Serj have implied the work from their solo albums post-Mezmerize/Hypnotize should have been a System album but Serj didn't think it was necessarily up to the standard that the double album created.
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