25 Years Later: Evil Empire
Rage Against the Machine. They won’t do what you tell them.
By Nick M.W.
This article originally appeared on Medium.com (4/16/2021). RATM’s follow-up to their scorching debut carried the fire.
Sometimes, we love an album because it’s a work of sonic wonder. The composition of the music, the power of the lyrics, the craft in the production all come together with synergy and harmony. There are also times when we love an album because it attaches to our spirits. That might be for the same reason I mentioned, or it might be because of the timeliness of the music and how it connects with your life in that moment. Music transports us to different places, dimensions, and moments in time. Whenever I put on Evil Empire, I think about that baseball tournament I had in Seaside, Oregon, back in the day.
Late June 1996, I’m fourteen and on the road with my mom somewhere on Highway 30 in Oregon, between Portland and Astoria. We’re on my our way to Seaside. Just the two of us. I’m scheduled to play in a weekend baseball tournament. My mom has the great pleasure of being a chauffeur and a spectator. When my stepdad opted to stay home to get some work done, the rest of the family opted to stay with him. We’re about an hour into the drive, and our conversation has dwindled. My mom puts some music on the car stereo, and I slip on the headphones to my Discman. I brought two CD’s with me for the weekend: Bone Thugs ‘N Harmony’s East 1999 Eternal and Rage Against the Machine’s Evil Empire. That was my rotation for the weekend
I fell in love with those two albums on that road trip out to Seaside. They served as salvation from the boredom of being on the road. For a young teen obsessed with anti-authoritarian sentiments in the music they listened to, Rage were the grandmasters of social unrest.
Four years after blistering the scene with their self-titled debut, Rage dropped the highly anticipated Evil Empire. I’m speaking for myself here, but I’m not alone. Twenty-five years later, this album is still ferocious, flashing the same teeth and charging forward with the same energy as its predecessor. It isn’t as raw as the debut, and it has some tracks that sound a bit generic (i.e. they don’t command your attention the way “Bulls on Parade” does). But, it does provide for some incredible moments when the band seems to let the rage flow through them.
The silver anniversary of Evil Empire is a perfect reason to listen to this all-out hard rock cry for war, so kick back and make yourself a Molotov cocktail for the evening. The entire album is anarchist synergy of sound; the music and lyrics have a better flow than their predecessor — considered by most fans to be the best of their album. It’s no doubt excellent, but I like Evil Empire more. Yeah, it holds a special place in my heart because it reminds me of my youth (I played well in that weekend tournament), but I this it sounds better and hits harder. This is Rage self-actualized, flexing their revolutionary form hard for the world, and not wavering one fucking bit.
Here are my favorite tracks.
“People of the Sun”
The album kicks off with Tom Morello’s guitar sounding like an alarm going off, and Zack De La Rocha urging his people to “come up”. This track is the first Molotov to crash against the White House and the flipped Reagan reference to the U.S.S.R. The energy the band channels through their instruments is deftly matched by their front man, whose lyrics scathe through the history of Spanish conquest of Mexico and the collapse of the Aztec:
“Since 1516 minds attacked and overseen/Now crawl amidst the ruins of this empty dream”
The ramifications of the conqueror on the conquered:
“When the fifth sun sets get back reclaim/Tha spirit of Cuahtemoc alive an untamed”
And how that mentality tracks through time to violence against Mexican-Americans during L.A.’s Zoot Suit riots:
“Our past blastin on through tha verses/Brigades of taxi cabs rollin Broadway like hearses/Troops strippin Zoots/Shots of red mist/Sailor’s blood on tha deck”
This track is the best opener of any RATM album.
“Bulls On Parade”
“When you want to rock hard, children, lean on F sharp.” — Tom Morello
That’s the guitar god’s advice to fledgling guitarists who really want to shred.
Best track on the album, not by much, and my favorite RATM song (also by a thin margin). What I said about Evil Empire being RATM’s moment to flex is on full display in this track. It’s no wonder this was the lead single. It has everything important about the entire album — the force of the music and the power of the message — compressed into three minutes and fifty seconds of run time. If this song had legs, one of them would certainly kick you in the groin to wake you up.
This song is one three perfect marriages between rap and rock music on this album. It explodes with drums and guitars before Tom Morello hypnotizes us with the wah-wah for a few seconds. Zack drops his “Come with it now!” challenge, and all hell breaks loose. I can see it now. The band settles into the groove of the verse, and Zack calls back to the bomb that went off ten seconds prior.
“The microphone explodes/Shattering the molds”
He hits “Freedom” level fury in his vocals by the time we hit the end of this song, but his delivery throughout the track really feels like he grew up bopping his head to Public Enemy.
Then there’s Tom Morello pulling some damn voodoo with his guitar, a bona fide rock god transforming into a DJ, going for sort of that “Ghetto Boys, menacing, Houston sixth ward sound.” You nailed it, sir.
“Vietnow”
Terror tha product you push/I a truth addict/Aw, shit I gotta headrush.
A savage attack on the type of media that promotes fear of the “other”. Zack nails those talking heads to the wall, calling them out for the fear they spread through the lies they speak about the “other”. There’s always been an “Other” in human society (Where are my sociologists at?), and Zack is telling us that right-wing talking heads use the Other, specifically creating a fear of them, to not only gain fame and notoriety through their platform, but also to help sway political power in their way.
“Shock around the clock/From noon ’til noon”
“Thrown from tha throat/New cages an scapegoats”
As he did in “People of the Sun”, Zack spits out threats to the perps of disinformation.
“I tune in with a bullet ta shut down tha Devil sound/Tha program of Vietnow”
The band’s supercharged energy pushes Zack as he continues to flame the hatemongers. He compares their verbal bashing to the brutalities of slavery and policing. He goes for the throat.
“The transmission’s wippin’ our backs/Comin’ down like bats from Stacy Coon”
The track closes with a great line:
“Fear is your only god.”
“Tire Me”
Of the two Grammy nominated songs on Evil Empire, Rage won it for this track in the “Best Metal Performance” category. “Bulls On Parade” was nominated in the same year, in a different category (“Best Hard Rock Performance”), losing to Smashing Pumpkins “Bullet With Butterfly Wings”. What? Yeah, that’s the Grammy’s for you.
“Tire Me” is a blitz, though. It feels like the song is trying to run away (or towards) the inevitable end of it all. Tim Commerford’s opening bass groove paces the track with urgency. The guitar, drums, and vocals join seconds later, like a match sparking a wick. From there, the band incinerates Western/American conceptions of beauty and success; the accumulation of wealth and prestige based on the lies of a dream that, somewhere along the line, was another person’s nightmare. There’s blood on these hands.
The high point of this song for me is Brad Wilk’s drumming. When I described the track as a “blitz”, it’s because Brad’s tempo blasts like a .50 cal punching through concrete walls. Listen to that transition between the chorus and second verse. That’s the “ra-ta-ta-tat” of resistance.
Hit up the mosh pit here.
“Down Rodeo”
“Yeah I’m rollin’ down Rodeo with a shotgun/These people ain’t seen a brown skin man since their grandparents bought one”
One of the great things about RATM is that the band can come at you in different ways. Tim Commerford might pummel you to death with a riff, like on “Bombtrack”; Brad might blast holes through like the aforementioned .50 cal. Tom might rip through your soul with his own riff, like in “Bulls On Parade”; or Zack might roast you like Dracarys.
The thin margin that puts “Bulls On Parade” at the top of my favorite RATM song list hits a log jam when I look at the runners up. It’s possible that if I were asked “which is my favorite RATM song” at another point in a year (this year, last year, ten years ago), I might say “Down Rodeo” or “Year of tha Boomerang”. These three cuts are definitive rap/rock. It’s music that kicks your ass with a purpose.
Zack spits with venom, hoping to strike a vein with his words and bring the system down. Check these bars:
“The clockers born starin’ at an empty plate/Momma’s torn hands cover her sunken face/
We hungry but them belly full/The structure is set ya never change it with a ballot pull/
In the ruins there’s a network for tha toxic rock/School yard to precinct/Suburb ta project block/
Bosses broke south for new flesh and a factory floor/The remains left chained to the powder war”
The dichotomy of an abundance of opportunity for the “haves” juxtaposed with the lack of such with the “have nots” can be witnessed, probably now more than in 1996, with a trip down Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. Here, you’ll find what Zack was singing about in “Tire Me” in every store front, along the sidewalk, and on the road of this famous block. Drive a few miles south or east, maybe even a few blocks west these days, and you’ll see people living on the street. A lot of people. There are many paths that can lead to that outcome. Some of those Zack rapped about twenty-five years ago, and the ripples are still felt and seen.
All of the fury in the first few minutes of the song fades, like “hope”, by the end, in a quiet death by the band and an admission that there are things, like dignity and equality, that some people in this world will never have.
“Year of tha Boomerang”
“Tha sistas are in, so check the front line”
The title of this song is a nod to Frantz Fanon, the psychiatrist, political philosopher, and author, who once referred to a time when violent uprisings would come back and hit imperialists in the face. The “boom-bap” clap of the track calls back to rap songs with the signature sound. It also calls back to RATM’s debut album.
This is the third and final song of my Evil Empire trinity of power. It’s also the last track on the album and a hell of a way to shut shit down, kind of like the way “Freedom” closes out their previous work. Parallels between the two tracks exits. Tim Commerford’s basslines sound similar. Brad Wilk’s drums dance the line between hard rock power and hip-hop funk. Tom Morello gives us a signature riff. Zack De La Rocha raps his way into a fit that ends with him screaming a one-word chant into the mic. Both tracks are bangers.
These bars sum up the themes laced throughout Evil Empire (American right-wing fanaticism, oppression of the Other, stripping away the rights of the 99% for corporate greed):
“’Cause I’m cell locked in tha doctrines of the right/Enslaved by dogma, ya talk about my birthrights/Yet at every turn I’m runnin’ into Hell’s gates/So I grip tha cannon like Fanon an pass tha shells to my classmates/(All power to the people, yeah) ’Cause the bosses right to live is mine to die”
Evil Empire is near perfect. It has a moment or two when Rage sound like an off-brand version of themselves, but it also gives you some of the best songs this band recorded, and it still carries the fire they lit with their first record. Happy 25th to one of my all-time favorite albums!
