They have some way better political lyrics than BYOB. Boom! and Holy Mountains come to mind.

I loved SoaD when I was younger, and would basically listen to them whenever I wasn't listening to Pink Floyd.

I'm probably going to download their self-titled and Toxicity tonight to reform my opinion about them (and maybe Serj's solo debut).

I like a handful of songs from SOAD, but other than that they don't catch my interest.

Happy to hear that they're touring again, though.

My Armenian friend met Serj Tankian once, can't remember the story, but it would be pretty awesome to meet him!

My favorite tracks are Toxicity, Radio/Video, Question, Violent Pornography, Spiders and Chop Suey.
Loved Serj Tankian's Elect the Dead album. I've not listened to the second one yet. I'll get around to it some time.

Is Steal This Album, Mesmorize, or Hypnotize worth buying?

I would skip Steal This Album. I think it was the weakest in their discography. Also, you might want to check out Daron Malakian's band Scars on Broadway. Daron supplies guitar and vocals for the band, just as he did with SOAD. I'm not big a fan of either band, though. I can only take them in small doses. Personally I found Serj's solo effort to be terrible. "Empty Walls" was one of the songs that constantly plagued my radio until I opted for my iPod jack last year.

Apart from "Russian Roulette" and "Mr. Jack", I pretty much agree.

Mezmorize... to be honest, I prefer "Hypnotize" more. "Mezmorize" apart from BYOB never did much for me, but "Hypnotize" has "Kill Rock n Roll", "Holy Mountains" and the title-track, which are some of their best stuff.

Not that big on these guys anymore, and still think the self-titled album is the best.

I've always thought that really only their S/T and Toxicity were the essentials. That's why I never bought anything else by them.

I have gotten over the hype of "Toxicity" and find it to be average at best.. not that masterpeice people make it out to be. As I said one in this thread, I find them to be pretty bad songwriters. The first album lyrically was nothing to write home about, but it had a consistent groove to it that made it more kind of a fun angst-ridden type album.

I do not see the big deal with "Toxicity" anymore, apart from a few songs... but as a whole, i think it is just alright at best.