221. Rage Against the Machine, "Rage Against the Machine"

 


This album came out in 1992.  Sadly, 30 years later, Zack De La Rocha's lyrics are still, if not even more, relevant.  Here quoted by guitarist Tom Morello:


That's from the second track, "Killing in the Name Of" (actual quote: "Some of those that work forces/Are the same that burn crosses").  Every single one of the 10 tracks on this album are just as explicitly political and defiant and, well, enraged.  It's hard to do openly political music well, unless you're Rage Against the Machine, a social justice organization that also made kickass rap-metal before that became a joke genre.

Of course De La Rocha's lyrics take center stage in this operation, because of their stridency and urgency and call to arms.  Like in "Wake Up":

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

But listening back to this record for the first time in God knows how long, it's really Morello's guitar that stands out to me.  He was able to wrench so many different sounds from his rig; it's really amazing.  And just like De La Rocha's raps, the guitar sounds angry and insistent and desperate sometimes.  He's really a gifted guitarist.

Musically, Rage wears their influences on their sleeve - you can tell they've been absorbing both Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers, taking a little from both and adding some extra metal and De La Rocha's voice, an instrument in and of itself.

This album does not let up.  There is nothing particularly fun about listening to it.  It's angry - deservedly so - and, while there are moments of peace (check out the solo in "Settle for Nothing," it's lovely), this album is not interested in making you feel good.  It's not an album to mix some drinks to and enjoy, unless those drinks are gasoline in a glass bottle garnished with a rag.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Definitely.

Comments

  1. GGJanuary 20, 2022 at 11:26 AM

    As an L.A. native, this album will always be inseparable for me from the experience of living through the civil unrest following the Rodney King acquittals. I've had no desire to listen to it since 1992, but it's one of those albums that just happened to be released in precisely the right time and place for both its sound and subject matter.

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