Standard Issue: Rage Against The Machine
Image by Nick M.W.
Our favorite picks of music by rebels for riots.
“Standard Issue” is an ongoing series from FFP writers who feel the need to drop knowledge and make certain that the world knows what makes up the most fundamental elements of any given band or genre’s sound.
FFP’s first published “Standard Issue” was “Standard Issue: Punk”. Catch up and check it out.
In this issue, because we love RATM, fellow FFP scribe C.A. Ramirez and I took it upon ourselves to choose our top three RATM tracks and gush about what makes them quintessential to the band’s catalog. Whether you’re a grizzled RATM vet or a burgeoning rock music fan, you can trust us with your hearts, your ears, and your minds.
Rage Against the Machine exploded onto the scene in the early 90’s with a rap rock style that preceded the gruesome Nu-Metal wave of the early 2000’s by nearly a decade. Despite their unorthodox combination of hip-hop lyrics and hard rock music, RATM remains one of the hardest politically minded groups of the century. The lyrics can burn down any oppressive establishment but the entire song catches fire like a gasoline soaked pyre when the drum, bass, and guitar fall into the opening chorus.
We both choose our top three songs that we think capture RATM’s spirit of rebellion.
Image by Nick M.W.
C.A.’s Picks
#1: “Know Your Enemy”
Album: Rage Against The Machine (1992)
“Mind of a revolutionary, So clear the lane/
The finger to the land of the chains/
What? ‘Welcome to the land of the free?’'/
Whoever told you that is your enemy.”
“Know Your Enemy” is the unofficial anthem of every protest that has ever occurred or will. It is so inflammatory, Spotify requires that I acknowledge its “explicit” content EVERY TIME I want to play it. Morello’s modified guitar draws you in with its modulated synthesizer effect before Wilk and Commerford hit the stage with a jazzy drum and bass line. All seems calm and collected before the entire band drops the beat harder than an atomic bomb. Morello’s main guitar riff hits like a bag of hammers thrown from a skyrise, this song can instigate a revolt from the most placid group of citizens at the drop of hat.
The power of RATM’s rebellious sound and incendiary lyrics are framed perfectly by this song and it remains one of their best after 30 years. Zach de la Rocha’s lyrics can burn down any oppressive establishment, but the entire song catches fire like a gasoline soaked pyre when the drum, bass, and guitar fall into the chorus. “Know Your Enemy” is about taking the blinders off your eyes and opening your mind to the possibility that everything you’ve been pushed towards is a dead end instead of a way out.
#2: “Down Rodeo”
Album: Evil Empire (1996)
“Still we lampin’, still clockin dirt for our sweat/
A ballot’s dead, so a bullet’s what I get/
A thousand years they had the tools, we should be takin em/
Fuck the G-ride, I want the machines that are makin em.”
Rage Against the Machine’s second album, Evil Empire, takes the intensity of the first and wraps it up into a sonic bomb that rattles the mind. While their debut album was centered around global injustice, Evil Empire sets a sight picture that has The United States in its crosshairs. The working class is their canvas and each track reflects this with every incensed lyric and furious beat.
‘Down Rodeo’ starts off with an absolute fire chorus, “Yeah I’m rollin down Rodeo with a shotgun/ These people ain’t seen a brown-skinned man since their grandparents bought one.” A chorus that puts a napalm inferno to shame. The greatest line is the one quoted above that spits in the face of 90’s mainstream hip-hop’s attraction to wealth – “Fuck the G-rides, I want the machines that are makin em.”
#3: “Calm Like a Bomb”
Album: The Battle of Los Angeles (1999)
“There’s a bank, there’s a church, a myth, and a hearse/
A mall and a loan, a child dead at birth/
There’s a widow pig parrot, a rebel to tame/
A white-hooded judge, a syringe, and a vein/
And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard.”
Rage Against the Machine’s last original album hit the streets in 1999 and left a satchel of Semtex to detonate in the minds of its fans. The album was terrifying and sensational, but all of it fed from the horrors of the modern age. The world was on fire, much like it is now, and RATM was one of the few hard rock bands that encapsulated that fervor, catapulting it to the forefront of the Millennial mind.
“Calm Like a Bomb” starts off with Commerford’s silken bass line until the entire band joins in with Morello’s sonic guitar riffs, Wilk’s hard hitting rhythm, and Del La Rocha’s abrasive vocals. The entire song is a somber note that exemplifies the tarnished nature of the state of the world. The tone of its lyrics rhymes with their “Vietnow” chorus, “Is all the world jails and churches?” RATM is an experience, a force that demands you pay attention to the world around you and question everything your government hands you. There has not been a politically charged band since RATM broke up in the year 2000, but their ferocity and messaging will last long after its legions of fans leave this Earth.
Nick’s Picks
#1: “Wake Up”
Album: Rage Against The Machine
“Networks at work, keeping 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.”
RATM’s self-titled debut was like skipping right over all the atrocities of war, the bullets and tanks and soldiers, and going right to the nukes. On an album filled with the type of songs that melt steel, “Wake Up” stands out to me as the one true masterpiece. I went so far as to once call it the band’s “magnum opus.”
It’s my favorite song off this album, and, like any of these other tracks, it could stand alone as one of RATM’s definitive tracks.
#2: “Bulls On Parade”
Album: Evil Empire
“The microphone explodes, shattering the molds/
Either drop the hits like De La O or get the fuck off the commode.”
I mean, shit. If “Wake Up” is a manmade force that burns atomic energy, then “Bulls On Parade” is an unparalleled force of nature. It’s Mt. Vesuvius. It cracks off with a sudden burst, nothing more than a warning shot. Then, it simmers, allowing the tension to build through Zach’s seething lyrics until the track can’t hold back anymore.
Tom Morello’s guitar “wacka-wacka-wackas” like an alarm, letting you know that it’s, about, to go, down. Zach explodes into his “Come with it now.” The entire track erupts with all the repressed rage of the past three minutes, and your face melts off.
#3: “Guerilla Radio”
Album: The Battle Of Los Angeles
“All you pen devils know the trial was vile/
An army of pigs try to silence my style/
Off 'em all out that box
It's my radio dial.”
C.A. already introduced The Battle Of Los Angeles with a spot-on summary of the band’s third album. It was much needed levity as we hit the end of the 20th century and the peak of material excess. Yeah, I was an active participant in some of that “Bling Era” rap shit, but that was sugar-coated dessert music. The Battle Of Los Angeles was nourishment for the mind, body, and spirit.
This album is as consistent as RATM’s other works, filled with bangers straight through, from its start to its final, “War Within A Breath”. I guess I’m a sucker for singles. “Guerilla Radio” is my favorite track on this album, like “Bulls On Parade” was for Evil Empire. There’s a reason why both of these tracks were lead singles on their respective albums: they are true battle anthems.
Rage Against the Machine not only revolutionized sound in rock music, they preached revolution and walked that walk. Unfortunately for their fans, they peaked in the 1990s and didn’t make it out of the decade the way they came into it, as a united force.
They gave us three incredible studio albums of original work and one of the best cover albums ever recorded, Renegades, before they shut it down creatively in the twilight of 2000. They have since reunited and toured and broken up again and reunited and toured and blown out their body parts giving us what they always have when they perform, which is everything they’ve got.
There’s rock music for every occasion. You can throw on AC/DC as your beer-pong walk up music at any backyard BBQ. You can fire up Pantera for the power workout (or the drive into the office), and you can most certainly start a riot with some Rage Against the Machine.
Image by Nick M.W.
