Rage Against the Machine are a terrible band. There's no other way to put it. Their music is not good. The delusion that they are talented is merely political bias, which is blinded to the fact that Rage Against the Machine are protesting capitalism and corporations by signing with a major label owned by a corporation and releasing their albums commercially. Are you serious? The only other time I remember a band using this excuse was
Chumbawamba. Remember them? Explain how you "destroy capitalism from within" by releasing a pop album led off by a drinking song for inebriated morons. As for Rage Against the Machine, their mentality is revealed by the fact that their second album featured Che Guevara in its artwork, and on the cover of one of their singles. This stupidity is made even worse by the fact that Guevara had rock musicians thrown in jail. Guevara murdered people, and is now revered as a "freedom fighter" and "liberator" by morons like the members of this band.
But let's actually focus on this album in particular, Rage's self-titled debut, which was recently released in a "20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition" box set containing multiple CDs, DVDs and vinyl records, a booklet and a poster. Here we have further evidence of RATM's fundamental dishonesty. Rage Against the Machine are selling themselves as left-wing revolutionaries to make a buck off of their fanbase. Is capitalism exploitation? If it is, then this surely must be a supreme example of major-league exploitation. RATM has sold its fans an image that they bought hook, line and sinker. Their message non-existent, their music derivative, their image as carefully planned and calculated as that of the Backstreet Boys, New Kids on the Block and Milli Vanilli. It wouldn't surprise me if the vocals and instrumentation RATM lipsynchs to on concert stages was performed by the same musicians that conceived Linkin Park.
The band charges that cops burn crosses, corporations exploit man (though not Sony...JAPANESE capitalists are a-OK) and "revolt, freedom, dah dah dah". This album is the rallying cry of stupid people. An album for people who think that political activism is getting a lousy band's old single played on a pop radio show that the band claims to oppose. It is the soundtrack to lousy Oliver Stone movies and overrated sci-fi action films. Musically, it's a combination of riffs stolen from Urban Dance Squad, Stuck Mojo and Faith No More and lyrics that were considered to be hackneyed at the height of American socialism, when hippie college students relished a society that outlawed "consumerist" symbols and products like blue jeans, while the Soviet Russians themselves longed for escape from oppression and free, capitalist societies.
This album sounds like if you combined rejected pieces from Korn's worst songs with audio of your socialist grandfather yelling at a wall about how the ceiling is exploiting man. The album's cover is a literal snuff photo, the image of ThÃ*ch Quảng Äức setting himself on fire, claimed as a form of protest. This is the band's message. They want you to believe that human beings are inherently awful and should kill themselves to serve a "greater good". What was that other group that preached such a message? Oh yeah, Al Qaeda. And I'm pretty sure the Nazis were in favor of offing yourself for a "higher purpose".
You can tell that these guys don't understand politics by advising listeners to "Take the Power Back!" The problem with power is that it inherently leads to corruption. Communism is unattainable because the utopian aspect of Karl Marx's theory can never be attained, and people like to own property. Such a system can only lead to the government having more power than they should ever have.
The album's idiocy is best expressed by the "Killing in the Name" refrain: "*** you, I won't do what you tell me!" This mentality is the reason why the album was successful commercially. There is a market for enraged adolescents revolting against suburbia and their perceived persecution. These children are vain and stupid. This is the Rage Against the Machine fanbase. They go out in their A.D.I.A.S. swag and go buy the latest Rage Against the Machine album and headbang in front of the Che Guevara poster they bought at Wal-Mart. They know nothing about any political issue, but do whatever their favorite band tells them to. This is the irony inherent in the lyrics of "Killing in the Name": This band has no problem telling OTHERS what to do, but they revolt against being told what to do.
Communism is the philosophy of oppression. People who feel themselves to be oppressed will therefore become oppressors themselves. It's telling that this is the favorite band of Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan. You bought what they sell you. RATM *IS* the machine.
