Rage Against the Machine: Renegades

Years ago, standing in a loud, sweaty audience, I listened to Jimmy Gestapo of the New York hardcore band Murphy's Law as he spewed his vitriol upon everybody's favorite rebellious rap-core outfit: "How can you Rage against the Machine when you're part of the machine?!" This statement produced many cheers. But to me, the target seems much too obvious. When an underground-left-wingish alternative band gets signed by Sony, it can only pray that the album sales riding on the revolutionary-next-big-thing tide will counterbalance a flood of subterranean cynics crying "sellout."

Rage Against the Machine has managed to capitalize on anti-establishment ideology. Aside from the blatant ironies elucidated by Gestapo, Rage has done a seamless job of fusing PC angst and lucrative liberalism. Today's only truly political mainstream rockers, they may deserve credit simply for filling a generation's radical rock void.

But zeitgeist can only go so far. After an illustrious eight-year career, Rage has decided to release the only thing more ego-stroking than a tribute album to a band—a tribute album by the band. With uncredited covers of "rebel" artists like Bob Dylan, Cypress Hill, Minor Threat, and the Stooges, Renegades is as much an homage to its originators as it is a subtle rationalization of the corporatized counter-culture the band embraces. Just as Dylan turned folk into a profitable megaphone for flower children, Rage sells out stadium shows to free Mumia.

The music itself is almost an afterthought. Nothing thought-provoking—just thrashy, bass-heavy funk-metal relying on crunchy distortion and primal beats for a self-consciously subversive aesthetic. The repetitiveness of the melodies and the trippy sound effects are partially offset by a snarling bombast that seems to gibe at post-industrial chaos. But Rage overestimates the power of its relentless anger. I admit I don't own the original version of every track, but on a purely holistic level, the band's renditions just don't demonstrate enough stylistic sophistication to convince me that the covers either improve on the originals or are able to serve as fresh songs on their own merit.

The hip-hop tracks are more skillfully executed than the rest; "How I Could Just Kill a Man" and "Microphone Fiend" are tight and intense, smartly transplanted from electronic artifice to a more organic rock and roll context. Though not artistically daring, a respect for the old school does lend the band's badass persona some credibility. The album displays a brutal machismo, despite Zach De LaRocha's screechy timbre, that reflects a contrived toughness at once slick and raw. But the rock covers range from generic to incomprehensible. Many of the heavier tracks contain no vestige of the original melody. On the other hand, the intentionally stripped-down production of "In My Eyes" almost duplicates the Minor Threat version, but the doofy tempo and dumbed-down musicianship kill the punk sentiment by trying too hard.

The parti-colored CD booklet displays a dollar bill marked with the words, "You are not a slave." It takes a few seconds to realize that you've just forked $16 over to The Man for metal covers of Devo and EPMD. In selling themselves, Rage cleverly co-opts the commercial mechanisms of rock to inculcate its innocuous, even cutesy, propaganda. Armed with a message, a selective conscience, and a nostalgia for a time when the music industry could still be revolutionized from the top down, Rage is on a crusade to exploit themselves for the good of humanity. More power to them. (Epic) —Michelle Chen

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