"Shock" is a song by American metal

Heavy metal music

Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...

 band Fear Factory

Fear Factory

Fear Factory is an American industrial metal band. Formed in 1989, they have released seven full-length albums and a number of singles and remixes. Over the course of their career they have evolved from a succession of styles, as well as steadily pioneered a combination of the styles death metal,...

. It was the lead single

Lead single

A lead single is usually the first single released by a musician or a band before the release of its home album.During the era of the grammophone record, all music arrived in the marketplace as what is now termed a single, one potential hit song backed by an additional song of generally less...

 from their 1998 album Obsolete

Obsolete (album)

Obsolete is the third studio album by American industrial metal band Fear Factory, released on July 28, 1998. Conceptually, it is a sequel to 1995's Demanufacture...

and the first track on the album. Its music was composed by guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist Dino Cazares

Dino Cazares

Dino Cazares, born in El Centro, California, is a Mexican-American musician and the guitarist for Los Angeles-based industrial metal group Fear Factory. He also plays in the metal bands Divine Heresy and Asesino.-Biography:...

 and drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

mer Raymond Herrera

Raymond Herrera

Raymond Herrera is the drummer for industrial metal band Arkaea. He is a former member of the industrial metal band Fear Factory and Mexican death metal band Brujeria.-Biography:Herrera has been an avid gamer all his life...

. The lyrics were written by vocalist Burton C. Bell

Burton C. Bell

Burton Christopher Bell is an American musician. Bell is best known as the frontman of the metal band Fear Factory where he is the only consistent member. His singing style mixes clean vocals with death growls.-Fear Factory:...

. The introduction of a concept album

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

, "Shock" introduces its protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, a political prisoner

Political prisoner

According to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, a political prisoner is ‘someone who is in prison because they have opposed or criticized the government of their own country’....

 known only as Edgecrusher, who declares his personal mission to destroy the totalitarian society in which he lives.

It peaked at #16 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 Mainstream Rock

Mainstream rock

Mainstream rock is a radio format used by many commercial radio stations in the United States and Canada.-Format background:...

 chart and #38 on Modern Rock Tracks

Modern Rock Tracks

Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...

.

Charts

Chart (1998)	Peak positions
U.S. Mainstream Rock Chart	16
U.S. Modern Rock Chart	38