The Sickness is the debut studio album by American heavy metal band Disturbed. It was released on March 7, 2000, by Giant and Reprise Records. The album peaked at number 29 on the US Billboard 200, and spent a total of 103 weeks on the chart. It was Disturbed's only album to not hit number one on the US Billboard 200 until their seventh album Evolution debuted at number 4 in 2018.[5] In 2018, The Sickness was certified five times platinum by the RIAA for shipments of over five million copies in the US, making it the band's most successful album.[6]
2020 reissue
In January 2020, Disturbed announced that they were going on tour for The Sickness 20th Anniversary Tour with Staind and Bad Wolves. The tour was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Sickness was re-released to mark the album's 20th anniversary. It includes all of the original songs remastered and live versions of the songs. The Sickness 20th Anniversary Tour was rescheduled for July and September 2021.
Critical reception
The album received positive reviews upon release. Steve Huey from AllMusic commented "But even if it has a few less-than-compelling moments, The Sickness overall comes off as the work of a band who really doesn't have far to go to achieve total control of its sound and compositional skills, and that makes it a terrific debut album."[2]
Accolades
In 2013, Loudwire featured The Sickness in their "Top 25 Debut Hard Rock Albums" list, placing the album at number 24.[7]
Soundtrack appearances
"Voices" appeared in one of the trailers for the horror film Jeepers Creepers.
"Down with the Sickness" appeared in several films and video games, including Queen of the Damned, The One, Green Street, the Dawn of the Dead remake, Rock Band 2, South Park episode "With Apologies to Jesse Jackson", Guitar Hero Live, WWE 2K18 and other media. The 2009 Guitar Hero game (Guitar Hero 5) and Rock Band version have the "abuse" segment intact, however, all profane language was removed. Guitar Hero Live also features this song in the GH On Demand feature of the game, however as the music video version of the song is the version that is used, the "abuse" segment is not featured. Professional wrestler Christopher Chri$ Ca$h Bauman also used "Down with the Sickness" as his theme song from 2001 - 2005 in CZW until his death in an automobile accident on August 18, 2005. As of 2005, Combat Zone Wrestling annually run a memorial tribute event for Bauman titled "Down with the Sickness" after his theme song. The show originally started as a double header afternoon show, with another CZW event taking place later in the evening. Many former CZW trainees have made appearances on past events, including longtime friend GQ, who has wrestled on all of the events