Rage Against The Machine's first reunion show after a 6-year breakup, at Coachella in 2007, was a watershed moment for the burgeoning band reunion festival industrial complex. And Rage will return to headline Coachella this April, more than 8 years since their last show, and then hit the festival circuit once again. With 3 albums of originals, another of covers, and a fairly small number of non-album tracks, Rage just barely have a big enough discography to do a playlist like this, but I still had fun picking through it and finding a good way to sequence the songs and highlight contrasts, find the variety in a catalog that was so singular and so purposeful that I sometimes forget that Rage really did their signature sound into a lot of different shapes.

Rage Against The Machine deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Wake Up
2. Mic Check
3. Year Of Tha Boomerang
4. Know Your Enemy
5. Beautiful World
6. Calm Like A Bomb
7. Without A Face
8. Darkness
9. Take The Power Back
10. Ashes In The Fall
11. Tire Me
12. Pistol Grip Pump
13. Snoop Bounce with Snoop Dogg
14. In My Eyes
15. Born Of A Broken Man (live)
16. War Within A Breath (live)
17. Revolver
18. Township Rebellion

Tracks 1, 4, 9 and 18 from Rage Against The Machine (1992)
Track 8 from the The Crow: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (1994)
Tracks 3, 7, 11 and 17 from Evil Empire (1996)
Track 13 from the MOM III (Music For Our Mother Ocean) (1999)
Tracks 2, 6 and 10 from The Battle Of Los Angeles (1999)
Tracks 5, 12 and 14 from Renegades (2003)
Tracks 15 and 16 from Live At The Grand Olympic Auditorium (2003)

To the extent that Rage Against The Machine's politics seemed radical or fringe in a more complacent time, young people in America have moved further left and closer to Rage's causes and positions since the '90s, or even just since the last time the band played a show, a couple months before Occupy Wall Street kicked off. Given the increased relevance and resonance of the band's old songs, you'd imagine it'd be a good time for them to do a new record, but I'm guessing that won't happen.

In their last 4-year stint of playing shows, Rage never seemed to get close to making a new record, and Zack de la Rocha has been I daresay almost impressively unproductive over the last 20 years. Talk of a solo record came and went a couple times, but he never pulled the trigger, and he's only sporadically made guest appearances and one EP with a short-lived new band, One Day As A Lion, that I really dug. So when Rage play shows this year, there probably won't be any new songs, but if their setlists resemble the 2007-2011 shows, there'll probably be lots of "Calm Like A Bomb," "Know Your Enemy," "Township Rebellion," and "War Within A Breath," in addition to the band's popular singles.

I think the debut will always loom large over the band's legacy, but none of their albums underperformed, and I get the feeling each of them has its fans. I'm partial to The Battle Of Los Angeles because I feel like they got better at editing their songs down to punchier, more succinct structures over time -- the average song length of their third album was 90 seconds shorter than that of their debut. That said, I do enjoy some of the extended jams on the first album, particularly "Know Your Enemy," which features both Maynard Keenan, well before Tool's mainstream breakthrough, and Stephen Perkins of Jane's Addiction back when he was L.A. rock royalty. "Tire Me" has the distinction of winning the band's first Grammy, in the Best Metal Performance category (the two big singles from Evil Empire were nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance and lost -- I guess "Tire Me" is a tiny bit heavier than those songs but the distinction is kind of silly).

Cover albums, specifically ones where bands that usually write their own songs cover a grab bag of favorites by different artists, have a pretty spotty history as quickly forgotten stopgap releases. But Renegades is the rare covers album that went platinum and feels like an essential piece of their catalog, in part because it was released just after they broke up at the peak of their popularity. It's arguably the greatest rap/rock band of all time revealing their excellent taste in both rap and rock, spanning old school hip hop, gangsta rap, classic rock, folk, proto punk, hardcore and new wave.

 I don't like everything about Renegades -- for instance they slow down "Kick Out The Jams" to a more typical RATM tempo and it feels like a slog, and I don't know why Tom Morello had to go full Space Invader sound effect mode for "Street Fighting" instead of playing some of the original riffs. But the album is a test test of de la Rocha s a vocalist as Morello as an arranger and they pull off some great moments -- taking away the sunny upbeat surface of Devo's "Beautiful World" means removing the irony and subtlety that defined the original, but it's still a really gripping performance, a rare moment where Rage got quiet without exploding into a big crescendo at the end. And one of the other non-album tracks I was amused to find on Spotify when putting this together was the band teaming up with Snoop Dogg and Charlie Wilson to re-record a deep cut from Tha Doggfather.

Some of Rage's best songs were released on soundtracks, including the Godzilla hit "No Shelter," and I was happy to revisit "Darkness" from The Crow, originally "Darkness of Greed" on the demo tape that got the band signed. I can kind of see why it wasn't on their debut because it has a slightly different sound, but it's great. "Year Of Tha Boomerang" was originally recorded for the Higher Learning soundtrack, but I went with the re-recorded version that closes Evil Empire, which is pretty similar anyway. As a big Soundgarden fan who often found Audioslave kind of stiff and unrelentingly 4/4 by comparison, it's fun to hear RATM tear into a 5/4 groove on "Boomerang," I wish they did that more often. And though it wasn't recorded for the movie, I had to open the playlist with "Wake Up" just because it always sounded so arresting when it roared in over the credits at the end of The Matrix.

Previous playlists in the Deep Album Cuts series:
Vol. 1: Brandy
Vol. 2: Whitney Houston
Vol. 3: Madonna
Vol. 4: My Chemical Romance
Vol. 5: Brad Paisley
Vol. 6: George Jones
Vol. 7: The Doors
Vol. 8: Jay-Z
Vol. 9: Robin Thicke
Vol. 10: R. Kelly
Vol. 11: Fall Out Boy
Vol. 12: TLC
Vol. 13: Pink
Vol. 14: Queen
Vol. 15: Steely Dan
Vol. 16: Trick Daddy
Vol. 17: Paramore
Vol. 18: Elton John
Vol. 19: Missy Elliott
Vol. 20: Mariah Carey
Vol. 21: The Pretenders
Vol. 22: "Weird Al" Yankovic
Vol. 23: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Vol. 24: Foo Fighters
Vol. 25: Counting Crows
Vol. 26: T.I.
Vol. 27: Jackson Browne
Vol. 28: Usher
Vol. 29: Mary J. Blige
Vol. 30: The Black Crowes
Vol. 31: Ne-Yo
Vol. 32: Blink-182
Vol. 33: One Direction
Vol. 34: Kelly Clarkson
Vol. 35: The B-52's
Vol. 36: Ludacris
Vol. 37: They Might Be Giants
Vol. 38: T-Pain
Vol. 39: Snoop Dogg
Vol. 40: Ciara
Vol. 41: Creedence Clearwater Revival
Vol. 42: Dwight Yoakam
Vol. 43: Demi Lovato
Vol. 44: Prince
Vol. 45: Duran Duran
Vol. 46: Rihanna
Vol. 47: Janet Jackson
Vol. 48: Sara Bareilles
Vol. 49: Motley Crue
Vol. 50: The Who
Vol. 51: Coldplay
Vol. 52: Alicia Keys
Vol. 53: Stone Temple Pilots
Vol. 54: David Bowie
Vol. 55: The Eagles
Vol. 56: The Beatles
Vol. 57: Beyonce
Vol. 58: Beanie Sigel
Vol. 59: A Tribe Called Quest
Vol. 60: Cheap Trick
Vol. 61: Guns N' Roses
Vol. 62: The Posies
Vol. 63: The Time
Vol. 64: Gucci Mane
Vol. 65: Violent Femmes
Vol. 66: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Vol. 67: Maxwell
Vol. 68: Parliament-Funkadelic
Vol. 69: Chevelle
Vol. 70: Ray Parker Jr. and Raydio
Vol. 71: Fantasia
Vol. 72: Heart
Vol. 73: Pitbull
Vol. 74: Nas
Vol. 75: Monica
Vol. 76: The Cars
Vol. 77: 112
Vol. 78: 2Pac
Vol. 79: Nelly
Vol. 80: Meat Loaf
Vol. 81: AC/DC
Vol. 82: Bruce Springsteen
Vol. 83: Pearl Jam
Vol. 84: Green Day
Vol. 85: George Michael and Wham!
Vol. 86: New Edition
Vol. 87: Chuck Berry
Vol. 88: Electric Light Orchestra
Vol. 89: Chic
Vol. 90: Journey
Vol. 91: Yes
Vol. 92: Soundgarden
Vol. 93: The Allman Brothers Band
Vol. 94: Mobb Deep
Vol. 95: Linkin Park
Vol. 96: Shania Twain
Vol. 97: Squeeze
Vol. 98: Taylor Swift
Vol. 99: INXS
Vol. 100: Stevie Wonder
Vol. 101: The Cranberries
Vol. 102: Def Leppard
Vol. 103: Bon Jovi
Vol. 104: Dire Straits
Vol. 105: The Police
Vol. 106: Sloan
Vol. 107: Peter Gabriel
Vol. 108: Led Zeppelin
Vol. 109: Dave Matthews Band
Vol. 110: Nine Inch Nails
Vol. 111: Talking Heads
Vol. 112: Smashing Pumpkins
Vol. 113: System Of A Down
Vol. 114: Aretha Franklin
Vol. 115: Michael Jackson
Vol. 116: Alice In Chains
Vol. 117: Paul Simon
Vol. 118: Lil Wayne
Vol. 119: Nirvana
Vol. 120: Kix
Vol. 121: Phil Collins
Vol. 122: Elvis Costello & The Attractions
Vol. 123: Sonic Youth
Vol. 124: Bob Seger
Vol. 125: Radiohead
Vol. 126: Eric Church
Vol. 127: Neil Young
Vol. 128: Future
Vol. 129: Say Anything
Vol. 130: Maroon 5
Vol. 131: Kiss
Vol. 132: Dinosaur Jr.
Vol. 133: Stevie Nicks
Vol. 134: Talk Talk
Vol. 135: Ariana Grande
Vol. 136: Roxy Music
Vol. 137: The Cure
Vol. 138: 2 Chainz
Vol. 139: Kelis
Vol. 140: Ben Folds Five
Vol. 141: DJ Khaled
Vol. 142: Little Feat
Vol. 143: Brendan Benson
Vol. 144: Chance The Rapper
Vol. 145: Miguel
Vol. 146: The Geto Boys
Vol. 147: Meek Mill
Vol. 148: Tool
Vol. 149: Jeezy
Vol. 150: Lady Gaga
Vol. 151: Eddie Money
Vol. 152: LL Cool J
Vol. 153: Cream
Vol. 154: Pavement
Vol. 155: Miranda Lambert
Vol. 156: Gang Starr
Vol. 157: Little Big Town
Vol. 158: Thin Lizzy
Vol. 159: Pat Benatar
Vol. 160: Depeche Mode
Vol. 161: Rush
Vol. 162: Three 6 Mafia
Vol. 163: Jennifer Lopez

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 06, 2020 at 10:02 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.