{"id":21819,"date":"2019-03-29T11:06:14","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T11:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/?p=21819"},"modified":"2019-03-29T12:30:33","modified_gmt":"2019-03-29T12:30:33","slug":"rage-against-the-machine-the-last-band-that-mattered","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anfocal.ie\/index.php\/rage-against-the-machine-the-last-band-that-mattered\/","title":{"rendered":"Rage Against The Machine: The Last Band That Mattered"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Mike Finnerty<\/a><\/p>\n

You\u2019ve all heard Killing In The Name at some stage in your life.<\/p>\n

Be it at prinks, on Grand Theft Auto, Costie\u2019s, or that Christmas number one campaign in 2009,
\nyou\u2019ve heard it.<\/p>\n

It was the calling card of the last truly socially relevant band, Rage Against The Machine.<\/p>\n

\"\"
The greatest headline in history<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That intro riff hits with the force of a bulldozer, that slow bass build-up feeds into the most
\ncathartic and iconic riffs in rock history, and then Zack De Le Rocha starts his thesis about police
\nbrutality.<\/p>\n

A band consisting of 4 middle-class kids from Los Angeles with varying degrees of European or
\nAfrican ancestry, Rage was the shot in the arm the music industry needed in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

Cut to 2019, no band out there are even trying to do what Rage did \u2013 and that\u2019s a crying shame.
\nGranted, this is the same band that spent an entire decade railing against right-wing politics and
\nburned out by the time George Bush Junior took the White House, but their legacy still hangs
\naround the culture like the fallout following a nuclear blast.<\/p>\n

Rage\u2019s final studio album of original songs came out in 1999, the vastly under-rated Battle Of
\nLos Angeles, and it\u2019s the band at their potent and angry best.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re raging against the moderate Bill Clinton\/Tony Blair left; they\u2019re raging against
\ncorporations in the face of the dotcom boom; they\u2019re raging against the boomers who gave
\nForrest Gump Best Picture; they\u2019re raging against globalisation; they\u2019re simply put, Raging
\nAgainst The Machine.<\/p>\n

The Battle Of Los Angeles\u2019 greatest cultural legacy is the Michael Moore-directed music video
\nfor Sleep Now In The Fire, which features a \u201cDonald Trump For President 2000\u201d placard as they
\nplay on the steps of Wall Street.<\/p>\n

\"Image
A still from the Sleep Now In The Fire music video <\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What follows is a joyous cacophony of mayhem at the scene of everything the band believes is
\nwrong with the modern world.<\/p>\n

For their efforts, they got the New York Stock Exchange shut down and lead to an outcry in the
\nmedia.<\/p>\n

No band in 2019 would ever have the nerve to try to pull that stunt today.<\/p>\n

Be it boring insurance people advising against it, the outrage culture that was brilliantly
\nlampooned on a recent Saturday Night Live sketch with Idris Elba<\/a> or mere content with the
\nestablishment, no one will try.<\/p>\n

When Kanye West puts out an album of sub-standard SoundCloud rap and hangs out with Elon
\nMusk and Trump, he\u2019s considered a trailblazer and an artist.<\/p>\n

\"Image
y u do dis kanye<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rage set the bar so high for other acts in terms of achieving cultural notoriety; it seems that most
\nartists these days are merely content with playing the streaming game and putting out songs
\nunder 3 minutes.<\/p>\n

Sure, we get the occasional out-of-left-field pop hit (Portugal. The Man existed since 2006
\nbefore getting that one big hit), but that seems like the exception rather than the rule.<\/p>\n

Bands like Rage, and yes, even their awful imitators Limp Bizkit and Korn, were the weird
\nscuzzy guys in the smoking area of the pop charts 15-20 years ago, but now they are nowhere to
\nbe found.<\/p>\n

\"Image
This guy once had a number one chart hit. Yeah.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Listening to the top 40 on BBC Radio One on a Sunday evening would always give you some
\nfun and weird songs hanging out, but now it\u2019s just album cuts from the pop princess of the
\nmoment or some weird singer people found on Reddit.<\/p>\n

Are we really that content with letting people like Ed Sheeran and Drake become voices of a
\ngeneration when there\u2019s so much to be angry about?<\/p>\n

Granted we\u2019ve had Audioslave, One Day As A Lion, the brief 2007 reunion and Prophets Of
\nRage, but none of them captured the same lightning in a bottle energy Rage brought to the music
\nindustry all these years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Close, But No Cigar: Audioslave failed to capture the public imagination the same way Rage Against The Machine did<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Get Zack, Brad, Tom and Tim back in a room like that one Simpsons episode where the teachers
\ngo on strike, let them go at and air their grievances, and give us more of their firebrand music at
\na time we need it the best.<\/p>\n

To quote one of their best tracks \u201cWe\u2019ve got to take the power back\u201d before the likes of Lewis
\nCapaldi and Picture This ruin music for everyone.<\/p>\n

To quote my favourite-ever Onion headline \u201cWhere Are You Now When We Need You The<\/a>
\nMost, Rage Against The Machine?\u201d<\/p>\n

That headline was funny in 2004, but in 2019, it seems like a war cry.<\/p>\n

You can catch Mike\u2019s radio show Tunes From The Movies every Wednesday night at 9pm<\/strong>
\non ULFM.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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By: Mike Finnerty You\u2019ve all heard Killing In The Name at some stage in your life. Be it at prinks, on Grand Theft Auto, Costie\u2019s, or that Christmas number one campaign in 2009, you\u2019ve heard it. It was the calling card of the last truly socially relevant band, Rage Against The Machine. That intro riff […]<\/p>\n

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