Rage Against the Machine: The Most Important Band of Their Generation?

Uh, you know, I've talked about before my three album rule.

Um, Rage has two incredible albums of originals and a cover record that is fricking off the wall, next level, has some of my favorite songs of all time on it.

Um, their album in the middle of their two great albums, their self-titled Rage Against the Machine, and The Battle of Los Angeles, which is like a near perfect record, The Battle of Los Angeles, uh, is Evil Empire, which is a great record by any number of standards.

Um, but compared to, uh, the, their debut record and The Battle of Los Angeles and their cover record, it just, it, it just pales in comparison.

So I'm gonna start with the, the initial album, which talk about a, a wicked album cover.

I mean, it's so crazy.

I, I always like kinda get like split down the middle about things like this, 'cause it's slightly exploitative, this picture of this monk who is setting himself on fire, uh, to use this picture.

Um, but, uh, it said something about the band and, uh, where their minds were at.

And the album is the same.

Um, both Tom Morello and, um, Zack, uh, I always wanna call him Zack Galifianakis, [laughs] Zack de la Rocha, he, um, th- they both experienced a lot of, uh, racism, uh, growing up and also had very, um, political upbringings, uh, parents who were political and, um, you know, and, uh, more aggressive in the political sphere.

And, you know, I think that's the biggest thing why I love Rage Against Ma- Machine and the reason to love Rage Against the Machine.

Um, they really believe all this stuff.

You know, like it's genuine.

You know? It's, it's not some vibe that they've chosen.

I think the, the vibe chose them.

Um, and it's, it's very clear in so many bits of their material.

Uh, you know, to give some perspective here, this again was a band that I was listening to when I was growing up.

Um, you know, to give perspective, you know, my father was a rock star in the '80s, and those bands were kind of skipped over in terms of being deified, because I met some of them, and I would hear stories about other ones, and my dad wouldn't be talking about them like, like they were a big deal.

Those were his peers.

So I have the rock stars that I grew up with and the rock stars I inherited from him, which tend to go like '70s back.

Uh, I have a few loves from the '80s, but in, in general, the '80s is a little bit of a blank spot for me.

Uh, and it's big like '70s and '60s and even '50s and stuff, and you go back.

Um, and then this though is like my formative years as a teenager where I was discovering my own stuff.

And Rage Against the Machine is, uh, probably for me the greatest band of all time, um, next to, uh, my father as a writer and some of the contributions, you know, that I think Twisted Sister made.

But I really think that Rage Against the Machine is next level, so many of the things that I loved about Twisted Sister and, uh, the writing of Dee Snider.