Album of the Day — July 1
Rage Against the Machine — The Battle of Los Angeles
Rage Against the Machine — The Battle of Los Angeles
01.July.2020
Rage Against the Machine
The Battle of Los Angeles
1999
If I had only one word, to sum up, the music of Rage Against the Machine it would be relentless.
The Battle of Los Angeles was their last official studio album before the breakup in 2000. And if you’re gonna go out, go out with a bang.
Rage Against the Machine is:
Zack de la Rocha — lyrics and vocals
Tim Commerford — bass and backing vocals
Tom Morello — guitars
Brad Wilk — drummer
As the lyricist, Zack de la Rocha does not hold back. The Battle of Los Angeles’ first single “Guerilla Radio” name-checks political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal while the band uses the song as a platform to sound of their disgust at American politics:
Guerilla Radio
Transmission, third World War, third round
A decade of the weapon of sound above ground
No shelter if you’re looking for shade
I lick shots at the brutal charade
As the polls close like a casket
On truth devoured, silent play on the shadow of power
A spectacle, monopolized
The camera’s eyes on choice disguised
Was it cast for the mass who burn and toil?
Or for the vultures who thirst for blood and oil?
Yes a spectacle, monopolized
They hold the reins, stole your eyes
All the Fistagons, the bullets and bombs
Who stuff the banks, who staff the party ranks
More for Gore or the son of a drug lord
None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord!
Lights out, guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
Lights out, guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
Lights out, guerrilla radio
Turn that shit up
Lights out, guerrilla radio
Contact, I hijacked the frequencies
Blockin’ the beltway, move on DC
Way past the days of bombin’ MCs
Sound off, Mumia, go on, be free
Who got ‘em? Yo, check the federal file
All you pen devils know the trial was vile
Army of pigs try to silence my style
Off ’em all out the box, it’s my radio dial
“Guerilla Radio” won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance.
I like to think that if Howard Zinn were still alive, that he, Noam Chomsky and Cornell West would start a band … and that band would sound like Rage Against the Machine.
The second single “Sleep Now in the Fire” dials it back a little and the band tackles:
Greed
The conquest of the Native Americans
Christopher Columbus “discovering” America
The U.S. history of slavery
The bombing of Hiroshima
The use of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War
Sleep Now in the Fire
The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists and march around
Just don’t take what you need
I’ll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or I’ll drag you to your grave
I’m deep inside your children
They’ll betray you in my name
CHORUS
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
Hey, hey
Sleep now in the fire
The lie is my expense
The scope of my desire
The party blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
I am the Niña, the Pinta, the Santa Maria
The noose and the rapist, the fields’ overseer
The agents of orange, the priests of Hiroshima
The cost of my desire
Sleep now in the fire
OUTRO
Sleep now in the fire
Sleep now in the fire
Sleep now in the fire
Sleep now in the fire
The video for “Sleep Now in the Fire”, directed by filmmaker and activist Michael Moore caused the doors of the New York Stock Exchange to close while the video was shot on Wall Street.
Both the lyrics and music of The Battle of Los Angeles are an assault on your senses … provided you’re even marginally sensible or sensitive. Released in 1999 as the world was beaten into submission about the fears of Y2K, meanwhile, it appears as though Zack de la Rocha and the band were noticing something far more nefarious.
“New Millennium Homes” is on the surface about capitalism and how it impacts the poor. The line Old south order, new northern horizon is a slap on corporations — the ones that make you think they have positive ideals and practices when what’s happening is that they’re perpetuating a similar slave-owning mentality of the American south.
It might sound relevant now because this is one of the many things the BLM movement is about.
A more thorough examination of this song can be found here under the “General Comment” section.
New Millennium Homes
Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grow strong
Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as they reach for the dawn
The spirit of Jackson now screams through the ruins
Through factory chains and the ghost of the Union
The forgotten remains disappear to their new homes
The knife, the thrust, the life burns to the raw bone
The blood on the floor of the tear is still dryin’
Cover the spreadsheets, the Dow Jones skyin’
The cell block livestock, the bodies they buyin’
Old south order, new northern horizon!
PRE-CHORUS
Violence in all hands, embrace it if need be
(Violence in all hands, embrace it if need be)
Livin’ been warfare, I press it to CD
(Livin’ been warfare, I press it to CD)
Violence in all hands, embrace it if need be
(Violence in all hands, embrace it if need be)
Livin’ been warfare, I press it to CD
(Livin’ been warfare, I press it to CD)
CHORUS
A fire in the master’s house is set
A fire in the master’s house is set
A fire in the master’s house is set
A fire in the master’s house is set
Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as the weak grow strong
Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long
They get hope from fire and smoke as they reach for the dawn
Yo, yo, check the high tech terror of the new order athletes
Peering into the eyes of the child already on trial
These armies rippin’ families apart, get ’em on file
Convictions fit the stock profile all the while
Films of dogs, cuttin’ through homes
Ripping skin from bones, yes, the new millennium homes
Privatizing through private eyes, an era rising
Of the old south order, new northern horizon
REPEAT PRE-CHORUS
REPEAT CHORUS
Just like its predecessor, Evil Empire, The Battle of Los Angeles was produced by Brendan O’Brien. By 1999 he had produced, engineered, and/or mixed a who’s who of rock artists, both new and classic. From Kansas to Pearl Jam to Neil Young to Stone Temple Pilots to Train to Bruce Springsteen … the odds are if you listened to any kind of rock radio in the 90’s you’ve heard the work of Brendan O’Brien … and you’ve more than likely enjoyed it.
Both Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk are fine musicians and are the backbone of RATM, for sure … but make no mistake, this is Tom Morello and Zack de la Rocha show and O’Brien is the director.
The vocals are as aggressive as the lyrics may suggest. As Zack de la Rocha snarls and spews his vitriol into your ears in the hopes of waking you up, Tom Morello gets sounds from his guitar that may be considered unholy in some parts of the world, while Commerford and Wilk drive the beat. O’Brien puts Morello’s masterful and unique guitar playing right up front with the vocals … where it belongs.
It’s not uncommon to have the vocals and guitars up front but the mix here, combined with the sheer talent, is like a double barrel shot gun going off in your face.
Having never been privy to a double-barrel shotgun going off in my face, I can only presume. Suffice it to say, RATM and Brendan O’Brien made a masterful team.
The Battle of Los Angeles was universally praised.
Both Time Magazine and Rolling Stone named it the #1 album of 1999 — Rolling Stone also placed it on their Top 500 Albums of All Time list.
RJ Smith in Spin Magazine said: “While the band loves chaos in their politics, they dig control musically, and three years off between albums seems to have only essentialized their metal.”
David Lynch in his four-star review in The Austin Chronicle said: “The 12 tracks on The Battle of Los Angeles compose a loosely themed portrait of the City of Lost Angels, a place where fractures of the American Dream poke through the social skin like a compound fracture, whether it’s economic over human development (“New Millennium Homes,” “Maria”), or the sometimes democratizing effects of technology (“Guerrilla Radio”).”
Bruh, why so angry?
In June of 2020, as protesting took over the country and RATM’s music was gaining traction again, it suddenly dawned on some fans on the internet and Twitter that Rage Against the Machine was a political band.
Well, this being the internet and Twitter, the response was fast … and harsh … hilarity ensued (this is hysterical, worth the read). Leading the pack was Tom Morello … but RATM fans didn’t hold back:
The people angrily denouncing Rage Against the Machine for Tom Morello’s leftist politics is one of the more hilarious things I have ever seen on the internet. WHAT MACHINE DID YOU THINK THEY HAVE BEEN RAGING AGAINST FOR DECADES? THE ICE CREAM MACHINE? THE ATM? LAWNMOWERS?
YES, Rage Against the Machine is very political … and not warm and fuzzy political.
The image on their self-titled debut album was the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo from 1963 of Thích Quảng Đức, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, burning himself to death in Saigon in 1963 in protest of the murder of Buddhists by the U.S.-backed Prime Minister Ngô Đình Diệm’s regime.
The song “Bulls on Parade” was performed on Saturday Night Live in April 1996. Their planned two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers (“a sign of distress or great danger”), a protest against having Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night.
In 1997, the band opened for U2 on their PopMart Tour, for which all of Rage’s profits went to support organizations such as the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, Women Alive and the Zapatista Front for National Liberation.
“Voice of the Voiceless”, a song from The Battle of Los Angeles, like “Guerilla Radio” name-checks prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal and references a letter by Mao Zedong, called “A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire.”
So yea, they’re political.
Just learning that RATM is a political band is like thinking Old Yeller is just a movie about a boy and a dog … until you see it all the way through sometime in your 30’s.
For some inane reason, RATM gets lumped into that “nu-metal” genre. By and large, the genre is interesting enough as a hybrid of rock/metal/hip-hop and DJ’ing, it’s just that some of the bands rise above such trivial categorization. Rage Against the Machine is one of the bands that do.
While I will admit to some overlap, I throw-up a little in my mouth when I have to think about Rage Against the Machine being lumped in with Limp Bizkit.
There is overlap between Oreo Cookies and Creme Between Cookies … but, honestly, which one are you gonna eat?
The band was scheduled to tour this year but Covid-19 put a stake in that. This is unfortunate because Rage Against the Machine’s message is ringing louder than ever and their fury is needed now more than ever.
21 years later The Battle of Los Angeles isn’t just a great rock album, in hindsight, it’s a forewarning.
It’s no longer just The Battle of Los Angeles, it’s now the battle for America. Rage Against the Machine’s music, message, and their battle are relentless, as ours should be.