Every Rage Against The Machine Album Ranked, Worst to Best
Much like Ferris Bueller, Rage Against The Machine seems to unite every kind of person who listens to guitar music. Funky without the cringe-factor of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and featuring the power of Led Zeppelin (only with Robert Plant's warbling about lemons being replaced by a psycho-eyed rapper spitting political truth bombs), Rage are one of the most universally loved guitar bands of the 90s.
If there's a great shame about the legendary rockers, it's that there simply isn't enough material. Recording and releasing their entire discography within a decade, Rage Against The Machine burned brightly and faded away quickly, leaving an almost perfect catalog of work. These are the albums of Rage Against The Machine, ranked from worst to best.
4 Renegades (2000)
So-So Covers Collection From A Band Capable Of More
RATM's decision to release a covers album is a double-edged sword. Rage's sound is so uniquely theirs that any song the band plays instantly sounds like them. It's something that works to Metallica's favor on their classic Garage Inc. collection, or when Weezer decided to drop a cover of dad's driving songs on The Teal Album. This album keeps RATM's focus on being a serious band that delivers a devastating political message, but Renegades has a little more of a fun factor than the band's original output.
Rage's sound is so uniquely theirs that any song the band plays instantly sounds like them.
There are moments where Renegades occasionally hits the standards RATM set themselves. "Renegades Of Funk" and "The Ghost Of Tom Joad" are the obvious standouts, Bob Dylan's "Maggie's Farm" follows a familiar aggression to the version of the song by ska-punk legends The Specials, and they come from the exact same era and vibe as Cypress Hill, making "How I Could Just Kill A Man" a no-brainer.
That said, this is clearly a record company cash-grab. Released two months after the band split up following the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, it's a serviceable collection that adds little to RATM's legacy.
3 The Battle Of Los Angeles (1999)
Giving The Masses The Hits The Crave
If the sole criticism of Evil Empire is that it doesn't quite have the star appeal of the band's debut,The Battle Of Los Angeles provided some of the biggest hits of Rage's career. Taking the added layers and the daring approach of the previous album, a song like "Sleep Now In The Fire" had more ambiance and dynamism, as well as having a riff and chorus perfect for rock clubs, festivals, and casual headbangers.
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Of the band's three, 10/10, riot-starting opening songs on their albums, "Testify" is the best of them. It unfortunately does have a flaw that doesn't exist on the band's other two albums. For a band who fire at ten at all times, Rage Against The Machine's consistency fails them in the second half of The Battle Of Los Angeles.
The likes of "Calm Like A Bomb" and the generational "Guerilla Radio" are followed by the more pedestrian "Voice Of The Voiceless," "War Within A Breath," and "Born As Ghosts." The only real crime, though, is having two "more perfect" albums ahead of it in the pecking order.
2 Evil Empire (1996)
RATM Add Range To Their Infectious Grooves
Following up the debut Rage Against The Machine album is one of the most unenviable tasks to ever face a band, but this is no ordinary band, and this sophomore album is a doozy. Taking the vocal hooks, politicized aggression, robotic classic rock riffing, and hard-hitting beats that changed the world, Evil Empire is less immediate than the band's debut but no less impacting.
Unleashing a funk-punk attack on "Tire Me" that feels like Zeppelin, MC5, Parliment and Fear in a bar room brawl, or experimenting with tempo and mood on the irresistible start-stop "Revolver" felt fresh, but that wasn't to everyone's taste. While it feels as though history has corrected itself, Evil Empire was met with backlash upon its release.
It is on the doorstep of being impossible to recreate the hit factory of the band's debut album. Those songs changed the world. Instead, Evil Empire builds upon that musical blueprint to make RATM a better band. They add range and dynamism to their playing and songwriting, and they open the album with one of the best one-two-punch combinations in existence with "People Of The Sun" crashing into the best single of the band's career, "Bulls On Parade."
1 Rage Against The Machine (1992)
One Of The All-Time Great Debut Albums
It is not a stretch to suggest that the debut album from Rage Against The Machine is one of the most perfect hard rock records of all time. Following the successes of Run-DMC and Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way" and Public Enemy and Anthrax's "Bring Tha Noize," it felt inevitable that a band would emerge from those experiments, but nothing could brace Planet Earth for the impact of Rage Against The Machine.
Loaded to the gills with riffs that translate to Led Zeppelin fans, an explosive funkadelic rhythm section, and a vocalist who spits Chuck D levels of heat, it's an album that changed the course of guitar music in the '90s. Frankly, there are Greatest Hits collections with less world-changing songs on it. Most bands struggle their whole career to write a song as undeniable as "Killing In The Name", and this one debut album has the nerve to throw in "Bullet In The Head", "Bombtrack", "Know Your Enemy", and "Wake Up" for good measure.
It's an album that changed the course of guitar music in the '90s.
Hard enough for the metalheads, groovy enough for anyone who likes throwing hips, the best rapper to ever front a rock band, and more hits than you can shake a stick at. All three of Rage Against The Machine's original material albums are classics, but this is unquestionably the shiniest jewel in their crown.
