CD Odyssey Disc 276: Rage Against the Machine

In the absence of a lot of long drives, I've been uploading albums I've rolled to my MP3 player for long walks to and from town, with middling success.

One thing I like, is that there aren't any engine sounds overtaking the sound, so each album has a better chance to be appreciated. One thing I don't like is my MP3 player's penchant for randomizing the order of the songs. I find at the end of every track, I have to manually go and select the next track. I'm sure I can fix this, but I'm not sure how yet. In the meantime, it is a work in progress.

Disc 276 is...Rage Against The Machine (Self-Titled)

Artist: Rage Against The Machine

Year of Release: 1992

What’s Up With The Cover?: I believe this is a picture of a Buddhist monk self-immolating in protest of human rights abuses in Vietnam. Self-immolation is a rather clinical term for such a drastic action, though. I think 'burning yourself to death' better catches the truly tragic nature of a picture like that. It is a reminder that even those trained to maintain a spiritual equilibrium can reach their breaking point. A sobering thought.

How I Came To Know It: Another of my friend Greg's discoveries when we lived together in the early nineties.

How It Stacks Up: Rage Against The Machine were hardly prolific, and they only have four studio albums. I've only got two of them, this one and the cover album "Renegades". I've borrowed the other two from my friend, Chris and am determined to listen to them before Friday. That said, I can't imagine they'll top their debut, so I'm putting RATM's self-titled album #1 - definitely of the two I own, anyway.

Rating: 5 stars.

Rage Against the Machine are, quite simply, the angriest band on earth. Having listened to heavy, angry music from an early age, I feel I am more than qualified to make this assertion. In recent years I've enjoyed some angry punk music, and I've been introduced to Black Metal and the even angrier (and much less listenable) Death Metal. I say Rage Against the Machine are the angriest of all.

Much of this anger comes from singer Zack de la Rocha's lyrics. In an angry band, de la Rocha serves as the angriest member. In fact, he's so angry, he is rumoured to be a class A jerk in real life as well, such that the band couldn't survive, and went on without him to form Audioslave with new singer Chris Cornell (late of Soundgarden).

I don't share de la Rocha's politics, and while I find it interesting to listen to, his aggressive and constant calls to class warfare could get tiresome, even when artfully delivered.

However, something magical happens when you combine de la Rocha's anger with the incredible riffs the band lays down - particularly guitarist Tom Morello, who is rightly famous for doing things with an electric guitar that seem to break the laws of physics. Lest you think that it is a trick of production, RATM proudly points out in their liner notes, "NO SAMPLES, KEYBOARDS OR SYNTHESIZERS USED IN THE MAKING OF THIS RECORDING." If this doesn't sound like a big deal, then you haven't listened to the record very carefully. Go back and listen again.

While I would put this record solidly in the metal category, they have elements of funk and rap throughout that take it in very novel directions. When I first heard this record, it was like nothing I had ever heard before. So angry, so precise in its execution, but also so damned funky.

It helps that it came out when I was in my early twenties, working a low income job, living paycheque to paycheque and going out with friends on weekdays to take in Alternative night at Scandal's nightclub. Many is the night I have moshed to "Bombtrack" or "Killing In The Name Of", singing along with the crowd as de le Rocha chants over and over, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me." And yes, the irony of that kind of groupthink was not lost on me, even then. (I gave a small protest against my own actions by adding in the crossed arms over the head, a la Orwell's 1984).

The next morning I'd head off to work sorting bottles at the local recycling depot, with a hangover and a stiff neck from all the effort I put into vainly trying to make my curly hair flip around.

It would be easy to dismiss this experience as something unique to its time, but the Odyssey exists partly to test that theory. Over the past few days, I've listened to this album four times (and I'm soaking in it for a fifth right now).

I'm now in my forties, but the emotional power of this record still hits me right in the gut when I put it on. It is approaching twenty years old, but still has all the emotional resonance it had back in 1992.

I was also struck by some of the lesser known tracks on this listen. "Bombtrack" and "Killing in the Name of" have been played so often over the years, there is a tendency to forget all the other amazing songs on this record, including the alternating of pounding riff and smooth bluesy guitar solos in "Freedom", the innovate way "Wake Up" incorporates the riff from Zeppelin's "Kashmir" into a new song (without sampling), or even just the funky bass line that kicks off "Take the Power Back" (after all, a great band is a lot more than a singer and a guitar player).

I've heard the original band is back together, and while I'm always keen to see if they can get their anger back on, I am dubious if they will ever reach the heights of their first record. Here's hoping.

Best tracks: All tracks, although I will declare a runt of the litter, as I am wont to do - "Settle For Nothing".