System Of A Down released “Hypnotize” as a single on October 11, 2005, introducing the title track from their fifth studio album. With Daron Malakian and Serj Tankian sharing vocals, the song put their contrasting voices at the center of the second installment in the band’s Mezmerize/Hypnotize project.
Those vocal exchanges were part of Malakian’s writing process. Looking back in a 2020 Guitar World interview, the guitarist explained that he mapped out passages for himself, passages for Tankian and moments for them to sing together before presenting songs to the band. He approached the arrangements as connected vocal, guitar and drum parts, with much of the structure already established. “Song arrangement and song writing are where my strengths are,” he said. For the two 2005 records, deciding who would sing was part of deciding how a song would work. “Hypnotize” gave listeners a concise example of that approach, with both singers participating in the lead performance.
Malakian composed the music, and he and Tankian shared the lyric credit. Loudwire’s retrospective recounts Malakian saying he wrote the song while waiting in his car for his girlfriend, a situation that became its refrain. Around that ordinary scene, the lyrics refer to the Tiananmen Square protests and the influence of television and propaganda. The juxtaposition suggests a tension between political awareness and private preoccupation: the song keeps returning to one person’s immediate concern while asking questions about the wider world.
The recording belonged to a much larger body of work. System Of A Down recorded the two-album project at Rick Rubin’s Laurel Canyon studio between June and November 2004, with Rubin and Malakian producing and Andy Wallace mixing. Mezmerize reached listeners the following May. The songs intended for Hypnotize therefore came from the same recording period as the material fans had already heard; the autumn single opened another part of that work.
The gap between releases was deliberate. Malakian told WIRED in 2005 that issuing too much music at once risked overwhelming listeners who already carried thousands of songs around with them. He wanted people to spend time with a smaller group of tracks and develop a relationship with them. That reasoning gave the title single a particular place in the campaign: it introduced another album while the first installment had been available for several months.
The connection between the records also extended beyond their release schedule. Vartan Malakian, Daron’s father, created artwork for both albums, and the packaging was designed to join into one continuous image. “Soldier Side,” the final song on Hypnotize, completed the opening “Soldier Side – Intro” from Mezmerize.
Bassist Shavo Odadjian directed the “Hypnotize” video, using performance footage filmed at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on September 28, 2005. The clip premiered on November 1 through the band’s website and MTV.com, with repeated broadcasts on MTV2 that day. It placed the song in front of listeners through the band’s live performance as the album’s release approached.
Hypnotize followed in the United States on November 22, 2005. Its title track continued beyond its role as an introduction, reaching No. 1 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks chart and No. 5 on Mainstream Rock Tracks.
