FEATURE:
Killing in the Name
IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images
Rage Against the Machine’s Masterful Debut at Twenty-Six
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THERE are a lot of albums that warrant attention…
IN THIS PHOTO: Rage Against the Machine in 1992/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
and are those that we all keep coming back to. They are those we shine a light on should be dissected and respected. One such album is the incendiary and splenetic Rage Against the Machine. The eponymous debut album from the American band launched into the world when George H. W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in the presidential elections. In fact; the same day Rage Against the Machine - with that debut album on 3rd November, 1992 - announced their presence in the world was when Clinton came to power (he would not be inaugurated until January 1993). It was a narrow margin but it was a popular one. Consider what was happening in the world – from racial discrimination and violence to corruption and social inequality – and you can understand why this cocktail of an album came along. Although it would take a while for the new President to take his place in the White House and regain control of the ship; it is iconic to think this masterful album arrived the same day the United States welcomed a new leader. Every year seems to bring corruption and anger to the fore and there is always some form of unrest brewing. Stories of police brutality and despicable injustice was angering and igniting the American people but there were no bands around articulating that fury through music. Change was needed and many (in the U.S.) felt displaced and scared.
The reason why the anniversary of Rage Against the Machine should be talked about is because it is more relevant now than ever! It is somewhat sad and upsetting a record that rallies and rebels against evil should be more needed and reveals more light the further time goes on. One would think the messages from Rage Against the Machine would resonate and warn those to come. Presidents have varied in their competency and humanity and, although a Democrat in power was a good thing; there has been that building rage and sense of despondency. Now, twenty-six years from the release of that incredible debut and it seems like lessons have not been learned. There were plenty of hard-hitting and anthemic albums that arrived in the U.S. leading up to the introduction of Rage Against the Machine. In 1991, we saw Nirvana’s Nevermind come and Metallica’s eponymous release; there was Use Your Illusion I from Guns N’ Roses and Public Enemy’s Apocolypse 91… The Enemy Strikes Back. 1992 gave us Pavement’s Slanted and Enchanted and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic; Manic Street Preachers’ Generation Terrorists and Alice in Chains’ Dirt. There were some great Rock and Rap efforts but none that managed to fuse the genres in the same way; few that had that political edge and anger. Maybe Public Enemy brought some of that sense of injustice and fire but Rage Against the Machine came out of nowhere, it seemed.
In a scene where Grunge and Rock bands were talking about their own pains, depressions and angers; here were a tight and focused group of renegades who were armed and very dangerous indeed! There was no posturing from Zack de la Rocha (vocals), Tom Morello (guitars); Brad Wilk (drum and percussion) and Tim Commerford (bass) and their debut album smacked of complete conviction and reality! Unlike some of their preening and commercial peers; this was a band that meant business and were laying down an album that contained none of the clichés and tropes that were coming out at the time. Against the rather introverted and gloomy nature of Grunge; Rage Against the Machine possessed the same anger and attack but it was directed and projected at those corrupting the country and getting away, in many cases, with murder. Rage Against the Machine would produce three more albums before they split – although, technically, they are together there has not been any new material since 2000 – but none burned as bright as their debut. 1992 was a year with a lot of music gold emerging but, in political terms, political corruption and injustices were not being ably met by artists. Even though Rage Against the Machine has ten tracks; most of them are over five minutes long and a lot of ground is covered.
In spite of the longer running times; every song is tight and focused but there is a sense we are hearing mandates being laid. The band were not sloganeering or spouting worn buzzwords: every song on Rage Against the Machine was led by Zack de la Rocha’s poetic and fierce lyrics and the world’s best musical support. Take the opener Bombtrack and you get a sense of what is to come. The introduction trips and teases like Earth, Wind & Fire’s Fantasy before bursting into life. The lead summons the band into action and they galvanise in a storm of killer riffs and potent beats. Tim Commerford (bass) composed the riffs and the rest of the band impressed. The title unites the Hip-Hop term for greatest ‘bomb’ so, in essence, they felt Bombtrack was the greatest track. The potent and intense opener talks about “landlords and power whores” as Take the Power Back and Settle for Nothing showcase what an exciting and unique band Rage Against the Machine are. A lot of bands put too much emphasis on the front or push the bass to the background: tracks on Rage Against the Machine unite all the members and there is no one lead. The bass is consistently inventive and leading whilst the percussion provides the fist of power and protest. Morello’s spectacular guitar fireworks add so much to the music and heighten everything around it.
Even when de la Rocha’s lyrics occasionally slip into the ordinary; Morello and co. are there to bring the magic and support. Bullet in Your Head and Know Your Enemy are in the middle of the pack and are among the most explosive and enthralling songs on the album. Never has a band sounded as primed and angered as they do when talking about those who deceive and screw you over. Whilst not perfect and on the same level as the world’s best lyricists; Zack de la Rocha was able to write in an intelligent and inspiring way that was a lot more accomplished and inspiring than a lot of his peers. Wake Up talks about racism in the American Government and the counter-intelligence programs of the FBI. Part of the song incorporate an FBI memo in which its director J. Edgar Hoover suggested suppressing the black nationalist movement. Rage Against the Machine, on the song, suggest black leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. were assassinated because of the Government – they arranged the killings and needed them silenced. Know Your Enemy rallies against the supposed American Dream and its irony in the modern time. The song’s composition is dizzying and busy and makes use of Tom Morello’s toggle switch; the track switches between a pickup that is turned off and one that is on – which creates a tremolo effect. Commerford, again, was responsible for the riffs and he wrote the primary and secondary ones on acoustic bass.
Freedom, the longest track on the album, ends things with a real bang and one of the most fired vocals from de la Rocha. Songs like Fistful of Steel show how the band could layer the sound and take the song from a whisper to a scream. Listen to the slightly muted and far-off riff that starts; backed by bass and then, when Wilk’s drum tees up de la Rocha and heralds the song in; the lead gives out a pointed “Hup!” and the song swaggers forward. Maybe the riffs and composition should have been a little faster but, in any case, you get this head-nodding, resilient diatribe that gets into the head and makes you think. Most of the attention, quite rightly, goes to the lead-off single from Rage Against the Machine, Killing in the Name. The song is a tirade against American ills and makes reference to racist police brutality; the irony of those charged with protecting citizens yet embroiled in hatred and racial violence. The song’s chorus has the famous line “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” and that word, ‘fuck’, is used seventeen times. The track nods to occasions when U.S. police officers have colluded with white supremacist groups and implicitly supported violence against the black population.
The song arrived only six months after the Los Angeles Riots – it saw four white officers acquitted of the beating of black motorist Rodney King. No surprise the song resonated with people and remains Rage Against the Machine’s most-popular song. Killing in the Name is a live favourite – or ‘was’ – and was a huge radio hit when it was released in 1992. Aside from a slip when BBC Radio 1 D.J. Bruno Brookes accidentally played the uncensored version and provoked a wave of complaints; people have always been drawn to it. A famous campaign in 2009 aimed to get Killing in the Name to number-one and defeat the inevitable campaign from the latest X Factor warbler. Although Killing in the Name only survived at the top spot for a week – it slumped out of the top-40 pretty quick – it did hold off the challenge of Joe McElderry and show that, even at Christmas, a song rallying against police racism and brutality was a more popular choice than something more traditional. Although the song has taken on a life of its own and exploded; it does not eclipse the other nine tracks on Rage Against the Machine. With no filler and a phenomenal amount of confidence; the 1992 debut from Rage Against the Machine scored huge critical acclaim – it got a lot of retrospective love as well.
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
This review/retrospective, written by Pitchfork last year, paid passion tribute to the album and looked at the beginnings of the band and how Rage Against the Machine added their stamp to music:
“It was 1990, and Tom Morello was a struggling rock guitarist in Los Angeles, with a Harvard degree in social studies. He had a vision to funnel the unrest of the day—the Gulf War, the prospective end of apartheid, the collapse of the Soviet Union—and his galvanizing experiences as a Kenyan-American kid in suburban Illinois into a group that synthesized rock and rap into something inherently rebellious. Or, as he put it in a want ad, he required “a socialist frontman who likes Black Sabbath and Public Enemy.”
Within weeks of forming, Rage Against the Machine—a name lifted from an abandoned tune in de la Rocha’s last band—had recorded a 12-song demo of originals, pieced together largely from fragments in de la Rocha’s journals and song structures Morello had contemplated for years. By the end of 1991, they were navigating major-label offers. By the middle of 1992, they were recording their self-titled debut in a string of fancy Los Angeles studios. Seven of those first demos reappear on Rage Against the Machine in almost identical form, de la Rocha’s vocals simply sharpened by veteran engineer Garth Richardson…
IMAGE CREDIT: Getty Images
Rage Against the Machine became a better band on each subsequent album. Their landmark follow-up, 1996’s Evil Empire, is much more coiled and concise. Wilk and Commerford were perfectly heavy. Morello had found the fertile nexus between gargantuan riffs and idiosyncratic techniques that intrigued adolescent fans and Guitar Player obsessives alike. And on 1999’s The Battle of Los Angeles, their hard-nosed finale, de la Rocha is at the height of his polemical powers, rhyming in great hypertextual arcs of political pleas. Morello’s singular guitar style had developed to the point that Rolling Stone famously mistook his screeching “Guerrilla Radio” solo for a harmonica break.
Never again, though, would the quartet sound so casually confident, as if they actually had the gusto and naiveté to take on the world”.
You can claim Rage Against the Machine made a better album – although I would argue against it – but they never created anything as instant, unexpected and timely. The band have not ruled out a reunion but with three-quarters of the band (everyone except Zack de la Rocha) involved with the band Prophets of Rage – alongside members of Public Enemy and Cypress Hill – the band have gone their separate ways but there is no bad blood. It would be exciting to think that, in a time when Donald Trump scares the world and there is police brutality and racism; the band who brought this remarkable debut album could dust it off and take to the stage. You can apply inspirations from the 1990s and events happening then to 2018.
If anything; there is more fear and division in the world and America has a President who seems to causally overlook problems like racism and brutality. He stands for everything Rage Against the Machine oppose and, as such, we need to study Rage Against the Machine and learn from it. Whilst its creators might be reproduce it and follow it; I wonder whether any bands of the moment will take heed and create their own version. In many ways, Rage Against the Machine could only come from this one band who seemed to bright incredibly bright from the off. Although they did release Evil Empire (1996), The Battle of Los Angeles (1999) and Renegades (2000) – the latter was a covers album – I feel none touched the sheer brutality and brilliance of Rage Against the Machine. Few bands since have managed to create anything as jaw-dropping and potent. We need more political bands who can provide big statements and fire against the corrupt but it seems like other genres are taking care of that – solo artists from Grime and Hip-Hop are doing it instead. In this feature from last year; the band recall their beginnings and how the magic started:
“Twenty five years on from its original release, Rage Against the Machine remains chillingly relevant – current turbulent, geo-political times have ensured to that. The band’s firebrand rhetoric has also been given extra muscle by the arrival of Prophets of Rage, a rock-rap supergroup comprising the original band’s engine room of Wilk, Commerford and Morello….
IN THIS PHOTO: (L-R): Zack de la Rocha, Tim Commerford; Brad Wilk and Tom Morello/PHOTO CREDIT: Press Association
The seeds of Rage Against the Machine’s emergence can be traced to Libertyville, Illinois when Morello, a Joe Strummer-obsessed singer-songwriter and the “only black kid” in the all-white town, moved to LA in 1988 to join Hollywood rock band and Geffen Records incumbents, Lock Up. Having worked somewhat incongruously as both political secretary for Democrat politician Alan Cranston and an “exotic dancer” to pay the bills, Morello had his ambitions of fame dented when the band split up in 1990 after releasing just one album, 1989’s Something Bitchin’ This Way Comes.
When the band divided their final pay cheque of $1,000, Morello was only 26 years old, but the sudden career lane change proved inspiring. He was now free to make the heavier, angrier music he had held back from Lock Up’s recording sessions. Morello called in Wilk, who had previously auditioned for the band and, later, de la Rocha and Commerford.
“I was relieved that my music career was done," says Morello. "I thought, ‘Well, if I’ve missed my grab at the brass ring, then at least I’m going to play music that I believe in and love.’ Rage Against the Machine was formed with zero ambitions.” The band’s early writing sessions – a basic, punk rock set-up comprising guitars, drums and de la Rocha’s righteous rage – were soon imbued with a headier vibe.
Rage Against the Machine’s rock-rap musical gumbo soon delivered an album of demos that would make up their debut album. Early cassettes were delivered to record label influencers with a match taped to the box. Chuck D, impressed by the band’s lyrical MO would later take them on a powderkeg US tour where shows were patrolled with police helicopters and metal detectors were commonplace, the authorities fearing an outbreak of gang violence…
“Tom’s (guitar) was what-the-f---, out of this world,” says Chuck. “The bass was like [Motown bassist] James Jamerson. [Rage Against the Machine] had power.” On its release, Rage Against the Machine went triple-platinum in America and made the UK top 20, though its breakthrough moment undoubtedly arrived when firebrand single Killing In the Name was aired on Radio 1 in February 1993. In a headline-making blunder, DJ Bruno Brookes accidentally played the track’s uncensored mix, peppering the airwaves with the anthemic, but expletive-heavy chorus, “F--- you, I won’t do what you tell me.” Brookes was suspended and the LA four-piece’s notoriety was immediately assured’.
Last year saw Rage Against the Machine turn twenty-five and it seemed very apt that many would reconnect with it. A year on and we have seen even more outrage and corruption from Donald Trump; shootings happen and racism come back into the news; division in the U.K. and atrocities that gives Rage Against the Machine even more relevance and meaning. It is almost disturbing listening to a record that seems to predict what would happen in the future whilst brilliantly assessing the mess it was in (in) 1992. Few debuts have burned as hard and made such an impact and it is testament to a band that was tight, brotherly and, in their own way, uniquely talented. There was no minor member: each performer added incredible angles and D.N.A. to the album and ensured it was hugely well-received. Whilst the people of America pray for a new President and want to forget the disturbing reign of Donald Trump; it seems the chorus of Killing in the Name seems…
PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
MORE relevant than ever.