“Evil Empire” by Rage Against the Machine

A rap-rock classic turns 30.

This album review marks the 30th anniversary of Rage Against the Machine’s snarling sophomore effort.

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Genre: Metal, Rock, Hip-Hop

Label: Epic

Release Date: April 16, 1996

Vibe: 🐂

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👉 Click the GIF to stream the album on your favorite platform

“Is it hip-metal or heavy-hop?” That was the question posed by Tom Sinclair in his review of Rage Against the Machine’s Evil Empire in Entertainment Weekly. “Whatever you call it, the music [is] undeniably potent, sort of like Pantera for homeboys.” It’s easy to sneer at a statement like that (and believe you me, the weird racial undercurrent more than earns it), but it’s also easy to take the band’s unique brand of, well, sonic rage for granted. Artists who fuse together seemingly disparate genres now regularly thrive in various corners of the microculture (I see you, “hick-hop”), online and otherwise. RATM also started in that territory, selling DIY demo tapes for $5 in Los Angeles in late 1991. That street-level hustle was what eventually got them a deal with Epic Records and, 11 months later, a platform for their subgenre-defining self-titled debut. The keys to early-90s macroculture weren’t a few clicks or uploads away.

There’s a different kind of activist-minded exuberance that runs through that first LP and, in large part, carries over to Evil Empire. The rhythmic attack and political urgency of hip-hop were amplified by the sheer physical force of hard rock and vice versa. Bard Wilk and Tim Commerford’s chemistry on drums and bass, respectively, was pure alchemy. Tom Morello’s mad scientist riffs legitimately pushed guitar playing into uncharted territory as an art form. And Zack de la Rocha, all of 21 years old when he auditioned for the role of frontman, spits bars so righteously acidic, they could melt steel. From “Killing in the Name” to “Take the Power Back,” one thing was clear: they were having a really, really, really good time performing these combative rock classics. After critics and metal heads ate it up in equal measure, the band immediately hit the road for month after month of non-stop touring. It was a decision that nearly made them a one-and-done footnote in rock history.

“The first record came out, and we went on the road for three years straight, living together on a bus,” drummer Brad Wilk told the Los Angeles Times in 1996. “When you do that, it’s pretty easy to kind of get sick of each other.” They moved from touring right into the initial sessions with producer Brendan O’Brien in Atlanta, and, by all accounts, it was a disaster. The four members hadn’t stopped the forward momentum of their rap-rock machine long enough to confront the personal and creative conflicts that had begun to fester. According to MTV’s reporting at the time, the band fought so violently that they briefly broke up. Wilk said later he genuinely believed it was the end of their run together. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed. They regrouped in Los Angeles at Cole Rehearsal Studios, a room they already knew well, to recapture what they were afraid of losing. Tom Morello explained the logic: “Why spend $2,000 a day in some fancy recording studio trying to recreate the great vibe that we have right here?”

By the time 1996 had rolled around, Rage Against the Machine occupied an unusual position in the American rock firmament. Grunge’s commercial moment had mostly come and gone, and rock radio was turning to post-Nirvana programming alternatives, which included the first wave of nu-metal acts to break through to a national, or in some cases, a global audience. Three years later, acts like Korn and Limp Bizkit dominated the conversation at Woodstock 1999, though that was more about how they whipped the crowd into a genuinely unsettling frenzy. Compared to RATM, which had distinct targets for its lyrical and instrumental outrage, this new crop of rap-metal outfits didn’t have the same focused intensity. The budding genre borrowed Rage’s vocabulary without much of its meaning, making the sonic homages feel hollow from the start. The fact that Limp Bizkit can still sell out arenas is a fascinating conversation for another blog, but suffice it to say that there’s still a hunger for this style of music, more as a release valve for unfettered fury than anything else.

If there were any questions about RATM’s ability to bring the smoke after a four-year gap between studio albums, Evil Empire quashes those doubts in a matter of seconds. Opener “People of the Sun” builds a militant groove that never lets up, anchored by one of several gonzo Tom Morello guitar riffs. The song came directly from de la Rocha’s trip to Chiapas in southern Mexico, where the Zapatista uprising had begun on January 1, 1994, the same day NAFTA took effect. His lyrics reach back to 1516 and the Spanish invasion of the Aztecs, trace a line through the Zoot Suit riots of 1943, and land in the contemporary movement. The historical depth doesn’t attempt cookie-cutter commentary about writing past wrongs. Instead, he’s arguing that violent imperialism, a theme that runs through the entire album, constitutes a single, continuous fact. As long as guns and money drive decision-making, war will always be part of sociopolitical discourse.

Much of the LP’s second half quietly makes up some of RATM’s strongest-ever material. “Tire Me” is an absolutely vicious anti-capitalist, complete with one of the most devastating instrumentals in the Rage canon. “Down Rodeo” pushes the envelope even further, with Commerford’s bass line carrying you through the streets of a dystopian Los Angeles, where chaos is the norm, and the masses are out for revenge. De la Rocha’s lyric places the speaker in the back of a vehicle cruising down Beverly Hills’ most expensive street, creating a nightmarish reality with incredible verbal economy. “So now I’m rollin’ down Rodeo with a shotgun,” De La Rocha spits. “These people ain’t seen a brown skin man/Since their grandparents bought one.” Oddly enough, “Rodeo” is one of the more restrained tracks instrumentally, partly because it understands that those lyrics are so potent, they don’t need to escalate the tension much more to obtain the desired effect. “Year of tha Boomerang” closes the record nicely, submitting a verdict for everything the album has documented to that point.

But the commercial linchpin you’re likely familiar with is “Bulls on Parade,” a song that most precisely demonstrates why Morello’s guitar technique was so head-spinning, especially to youngsters like myself who thought, foolishly, that there were only a few ways you could play to sound cool. The main riff runs through a wah pedal set to full treble, tuned down a half step, creating a tone Morello described as inspired by the Geto Boys, with a dark, sinister tone. The solo is the famous moment: Morello mutes the strings with his fretting hand and rocks the pickup selector switch back and forth while working the wah, producing a sound that mimics vinyl scratching in real time. When I first heard that solo, I thought it was a DJ mimicking a guitar solo, which was interesting on another level. Later, after I found out that Morello played the solo the way he does live, my mind was blown. There was no precedent for taking the rap-rock genre fusion both literally and that deeply at the same time. To this day, it’s still one of my favorite guitar solos of all time.

The song was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the 1997 Grammys, as well as Best Hard Rock Video at the MTV VMAs. But no honor cemented its legacy more than when RATM played it during their infamous 1996 appearance on Saturday Night Live three days before Evil Empire was released. The band was the musical guest opposite host Steve Forbes, the magazine billionaire who had recently suspended his Republican presidential campaign. The band had been scheduled to perform “Bulls on Parade” and “Bullet in the Head.” As part of their stage setup, their crew draped inverted American flags over the amplifiers during rehearsal. SNL producers told them to take down the flags, for fear of ruffling too many advertiser feathers. In a move that will surprise no one, the band put them back on the night of the show, right before they went out to play their first song. With seven seconds to air, a group of NBC stagehands won a brief physical confrontation at the amp line and removed the flags again.

The show did go on, and they played “Bulls on Parade” live on national television, which is quite the accomplishment in its own right (I honestly don’t think SNL would have the stones to allow such politically-charged music material on their show now). They returned to their dressing room, directly across the hall from Forbes’ dressing room. A show representative arrived and told them the show was running long, and they wouldn’t be performing their second song. Commerford then tore one of the flags apart, knotted it, walked into Forbes’ dressing room, and threw it at Forbes’ family. Forbes himself was not present. The hallway was supposedly flooded with Secret Service agents. The band was escorted out of 30 Rockefeller Plaza and onto the sidewalk. As of this writing, they haven’t been invited back.

“The inverted flags represented our contention that American democracy is inverted when what passes for democracy is an electoral choice between two representatives of the privileged class,” Morello said. “SNL censored Rage, period. They could not have sucked up to the billionaire more.” That dynamic is a good encapsulation of what made Evil Empire difficult for mainstream institutions to absorb. Anyone who wanted the RATM sound without the discomfort or the argument that might ensue was going to have a bad time.

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What’s your favorite RATM song? Shout it out in the comments.