24. Rage Against The Machine--Rage Against The Machine

Year: 1992
Producer: Garth Richardson and RATM
Personnel:

• Zack de la Rocha--Vocals
• Tim Commerford--Bass
• Brad Wilk--Drums
• Tom Morello--Guitars
  

Perhaps one of the more controversial acts in recent memory, the once-disbanded and now reunited group's debut album rings out with their aggressive castigation of capitalist society through a combination of Zack de la Rocha's rapped/screamed vocals and heavy metal backing led by Tom Morello's aggressive guitar virtuosity. Bombastically critical of many of the social ills and inequalities that the band sees within American society, they certainly live up to their name, artistically raging against the Machine for all of the album's 53 minutes. However, by the end of the album this gets somewhat repetitive. Most of the songs sound somewhat the same i.e. "Killing In The Name Of" and "Fistful of Steel" with similarly anarchic messages that all bleed together to some degree, but not in the particularly good way that an album like Blood on the Tracks all exudes the message of hurt. Amazingly, they actually make anarchy seem a little boring by the time all is said and done.

Overall rating: It's all fairly good, but a little repetitive by the end. 3/5 stars
(note--I am pretty far on the left, so I'm not politically biased against the group, I just got a little tired of hearing the preaching ad nauseam by the time I was done listening. It's not you, it's me, Mr. de la Rocha)

It's an interesting historical note in the wake of the last presidential election cycle that de la Rocha chooses to namedrop "the Weathermen" of "palling around with terrorists" fame. Definitely a contrast to the way in which the group was exploited by opponents of Barack Obama in the last election. RATM speaks of the group in a heroic fashion, as people who should be emulated in their solution to an unjust system. As a historian, this divergence is very interesting to me.