Rage Against the Machine: The Battle of Los Angeles

Doing it for more than the nookie

In the three years since Rage Against the Machine's last album, Evil Empire, their style of rock-rap fusion has effectively gone pop, likely without their approval. While Zack de la Rocha and company toured, dropped a song on the Godzilla soundtrack insulting the movie ("No Shelter"), and waited in the wings, Limp Bizkit tore apart a George Michael song on their way to fame, and Kid Rock had a hit with the same irreverent rap-rock formula—the depth of his lyrics in the humorously titled "Ba-witaba" don't go much beyond "peace to all my heroes in the methadone clinic." Like Puff Daddy sampling a Public Enemy song, Rage's music was spread around, with de la Ro-cha's radical politics conveniently missing. And you think he soun-ded angry before?

The Battle of Los Angeles is Rage's attempt to snatch their rock-rap crown back, political agenda still in hand. As far as politics go, Rage has never been as mind-blowing as they'd like to think. If their simplified message of America as a war between haves and have-nots annoyed you before, well, it hasn't gone anywhere. Yes, there really are only so many times one needs to hear Mumia Abu-Jamal's name in a single song ("Voice of the Voiceless").

However, Battle is a solid record for similarly simple reasons. First, their message, shallow as it may be, is still relevant—if you think America doesn't have problems, just look at what happened to Woodstock '99. Second, songs with a message are refreshing in a time when most popular artists have nothing better to say than "I Want it that Way." Third, and most importantly, Rage rocks harder than ever.

The first three shots fired in The Battle of Los Angeles are enough evidence that Rage has expanded their sound—while Evil Empire suffered from too many nearly identical songs, Battle creates diversity with nothing but bass, guitar, and drums. In "Testify," guitarist Tom Morello makes screeching yet harmonic sounds more frequently heard from two turntables. "Guerrilla Radio" is classic Rage—de la Rocha sums up the 2000 elections in one question: "More for Gore or the son of a drug lord?/None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord." And de la Rocha's first eight bars on "Calm Like a Bomb," a title strangely similar to Public Enemy's "Louder Than a Bomb," have him sounding like Chuck D: "I be walkin' god like a dog/My narrative fearless/My word war returns to burn/Like Baldwin home from Paris/Steel from a furnace/I was born landless/It's the native son/Born of Zapata's guns." Think Fred Durst can beat that? Even if de la Rocha fails to call enough names or current events out for his political message to equal that of Chuck D or KRS-One, his lyrical prowess certainly matches up.

"Maria" is another highlight—Rage doesn't play ballads, but this story of one sweatshop worker's brutal life leaves its message imprinted. Cycles of brutality and poverty continue: "These are her mountains and skies and she radiates/And through history's rivers of blood she regenerates."

If there were more songs with such a clear point, maybe The Battle of Los Angeles would match up to such great message albums as Public Enemy's It Takes A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. As it stands, however, Battle still makes Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit seem more than a little inadequate. (Sony)

—Josh Drimmer

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