| "This Means War" | |
|---|---|
| Song by Avenged Sevenfold | |
| from the album Hail to the King | |
| Released | August 23, 2013 |
| Recorded | 2012–2013 |
| Genre | Heavy metal |
| Length | 6:09 |
| Label | Warner Bros. |
| Songwriters | |
| Producer | Mike Elizondo |
"This Means War" is a song by American heavy metal band Avenged Sevenfold from their 2013 album Hail to the King .
Various publications have lambasted the track for its uncanny similarities to Metallica's 1993 single "Sad but True". [1] The song was singled out by Machine Head's vocalist Robb Flynn as a ripoff. [2] [3] Users on Ultimate Guitar voted the song into the site's "Worst Guitar Riffs" list. [4]
Although the song was not released as a single, it placed on several American Billboard rock charts and received a music video. Directed by Andrew Baird, [5] it was released July 5, 2014. [6] The unreleased director's cut of the music video was released in 2017. [7] The song was featured in the video game WWE 2K15 .[ citation needed ]
Weekly charts
| Year-end charts
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| United States (RIAA) [12] | Gold | 500,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. | ||
Now that they've already cribbed the lyrical style of "Sad But True," A7X crib the actual music from that song on "This Means War." There's even a little pause at the beginning before the main riff kicks in, as is the case on "Sad"…