Line #16 Music/RageAgainstTheMachine


1	[[quoteright:345:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rageagainstthemachinepic.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:345:L to R: Brad Wilk, Zack de la Rocha, Tim Commerford, Tom Morello]]
3
4	->''"We have to start somewhere''\
5	''We have to start sometime''\
6	''What better place than here?''\
7	''What better time than now?"''
8	-->-- "Guerilla Radio"
9
10	Rage Against the Machine (can be shortened to either RATM or Rage) is a RapMetal[=/=]FunkMetal band from Los Angeles, formed in 1991.
11
12	The band is (in)famous for their ''extremely'' left-wing politics (identifying most closely with anarcho-syndicalism) and politically charged lyrics, which are integral to their identity as they considered their music a means of spreading these ideas. The liner notes of their albums usually include contact information to various organizations the band supports.
13
14	They have also played at large protests and had several cases of controversial moments, including playing on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' (in an episode hosted by buttoned-down Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes) with two American flags displayed upside down until stagehands came and removed them, and burning the American flag onstage while playing "Killing in the Name" at the infamous Woodstock '99 festival.
15
16	After releasing three albums during TheNineties, the band went their separate ways in 2000 over CreativeDifferences that the members believed were turning them into the exact type of unstable system that they would criticize, with the CoverAlbum ''Renegades'' releasing a few months after the announcement.
17
18	A seven-year hiatus followed, during which time the band members sans vocalist Zack de la Rocha formed the band Music/{{Audioslave}} with Music/{{Soundgarden}} vocalist Music/ChrisCornell. News that RATM would be reuniting to play Coachella broke at the same time as Audioslave's disbandment; minus a small break in 2009, the band would continue to play live shows until they went back on hiatus in 2011.
19
20	In 2016, the band (again sans Zack) joined forces with Music/PublicEnemy's Chuck D and B-Real from Music/CypressHill to form the supergroup Prophets of Rage[[note]]Unlike the case of Audioslave, however, Prophets of Rage did play RATM songs, as well as some songs by Cypress Hill and Public Enemy[[/note]]. Its run would conclude three years later similarly to Audioslave, as it announced its disbandment very shortly after RATM confirmed that it would reunite once more for a brief tour in the spring of 2020.
21
22	Due to the UsefulNotes/COVID19Pandemic, this tour (titled the Public Service Announcement Tour) was postponed first to 2021 and then to 2022. Zack injured his leg (reportedly tearing an Achilles tendon) during the tour's second show, and performed the rest of the year's North American dates while seated; the injury's severity led to the remaining legs of the tour (a European leg in fall 2022 and a North American leg in spring 2023) being cancelled. In January 2024, Brad Wilk announced that RATM had disbanded for the third time, stating that the band "will not be touring or playing live again".
23
24	The band was inducted into the UsefulNotes/RockAndRollHallOfFame in 2023.
25	----
26
27	!! "Guilty Parties":
28	* Zack de la Rocha - vocals
29	* Tom Morello - guitar
30	* Tim Commerford - bass
31	* Brad Wilk - drums
32	----
33	!! Discography:
34	* ''[[SelfTitledAlbum Rage Against the Machine]]'' (1992)
35	* ''Evil Empire'' (1996)
36	* ''The Battle of Los Angeles'' (1999)
37	* ''[[CoverAlbum Renegades]]'' (2000)
38	----
39	!!''"Troping in the name of..."'':
40	* AbusiveParents: Zack de la Rocha dealt with this, after his father's mental breakdown. The latter is referenced in "Born of a Broken Man" off of ''The Battle of Los Angeles''.
41	%%* AlternativeMetal
42	* AtomicFBomb: De la Rocha's iconic "'''''MOTHERFUCKER!!!'''''" at the end of "Killing in the Name".
43	%%* AudienceParticipationSong: Arguably "Killing in the Name".
44	* AuthorTract: Just about everything they write shows their political messages.
45	* TheBandMinusTheFace: Music/{{Audioslave}}. Kind of. Prophets of Rage also counts, with Chuck D and B-Real handling vocals in Zack's stead.
46	* BigWordShout: '''"FREE-DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!"'''
47	* BigYes:
48	** Zack lets out a raspy one twice in "Sleep Now in the Fire" -- once around the start, and again before the guitar solo.
49	** The outro of "Freedom" also has this alternating with Zack screaming the title, though the second time, he yells, "YEEAAHH, RIIIIGHT!"
50	* BitingTheHandHumor: The band was included in the ''Film/Godzilla1998'' soundtrack. The resulting track, "No Shelter", is a song about slick American advertising disguising real suffering, and even included a dig on the movie itself. ("Godzilla, pure motherfucking filler/To keep your eyes off the real killer.")
51	* {{Bowdlerise}}: Played straight, then defied; see TemptingFate below.
52	* BrokenRecord: "Know Your Enemy", which ends with eight repetitions of "All of which are American dreams!"
53	* CapitalismIsBad: The "machine" you should be raging against is capitalism.
54	* CarefulWithThatAxe: Even Zack takes it down a notch ''once'' in a while, but rest assured he'll be barking at you again very shortly.
55	* CarpetOfVirility: Tom.
56	* ClusterFBomb: "Killing in the Name": ''Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me'' x 16 (first 4 murmuring, next 4 in a crescendo, and the last 8 shouting out loud).
57	* CoverAlbum: ''Renegades'' is a collection of covers.
58	* CoverVersion: In addition to ''Renegades'', they have also covered [[Music/{{NWA}} "Fuck tha Police"]] and [[Music/PublicEnemy "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos"]]. At live shows they sometimes play [[Music/TheClash "White Riot"]].
59	* CursedWithAwesome: One of the reasons that their music is so good is because of how seriously they take it, and how seriously they took their music was one of the things that caused their breakup.
60	* DarkerAndEdgier: The band's cover of Music/{{Devo}}'s "Beautiful World" takes a song that, although light-hearted musically, is quite dark lyrically, and makes its tone even darker, with a vastly-simplified and toned-down musical arrangement.
61	* DisappearedDad: Morello's father left the family when Tom was only 16 months old and refused to have anything to do with them. Morello joked in a ''Guitar World'' interview that he was looking forward to the band's first African tour so he could visit Kenya "and be like 'What's up, dad? Here's a tape'."
62	* EpicRocking: "Wake Up" is 6 minutes long.
63	* FreeHandedPerformer: Zack was previously a guitarist for the Hardcore bands Farside and Hard Stance. Following those bands' split, he would form RATM and leave guitar duties to Tom Morello while he focuses on writing lyrics and rapping (as demonstrated by his exuberant stage presence).
64	* FunkMetal: TropeCodifier.
65	* HotBlooded: They are a very, very passionate band.
66	* IsntItIronic:
67	** Also, in the 2009 UK Christmas #1 race, when "Killing In The Name" went up against ''The X Factor'''s Joe's, "The Climb", there was quite a bit of {{irony}} as there was a successful Internet campaign instructing anti-''X Factor'' fans to buy the song. In addition to the above anti-consumerism lyric from "No Shelter", "Killing in the Name" clearly has the lyric, "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"
68	** In addition, Rush Limbaugh played "Sleep Now in the Fire" on his radio show once. Tom Morello was not pleased.
69	** Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican candidate for Vice President, [[http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/13/us/politics/family-faith-and-politics-describe-life-of-paul-ryan.html claimed]] that Rage was one of his favorite bands. [[http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-20120816 This also displeased Tom Morello]].
70	* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Tom Morello is a Harvard graduate with a political science degree.
71	* IWasYoungAndNeededTheMoney: Tom Morello once supported himself by dancing exotically.
72	* TheKlan: In addition to the famous reference in "Killing in the Name", there's a reference to a "white-hooded judge" in "Calm Like a Bomb".
73	* LaResistance: Many songs were dedicated to various leftist guerrilla groups in Latin America, most notably EZLN, aka. the Zapatistas, whose red-star-on-black-background logo can be found on the arm of Zack in the article image.
74	* LoudnessWar: ''Renegades'' is turned up so loud it audibly distorts through most of the record.
75	* MaleFrontalNudity: (In)famously at Lollapalooza to protest the [[MoralGuardians PMRC]].
76	* MetalScream: When Zack de la Rocha isn't rapping. Generally happens towards the end of songs, when a single line is repeated over and over again. Examples, aside from "Killing in the Name", include "Wake Up", "Freedom", "Down Rodeo" and "Bullet in the Head".
77	* NotTheIntendedUse: Tom Morello's claim to fame as a guitar player is in how he occasionally elicits very unexpected sounds from his electric guitars, the most famous example of which are the turntable-like sounds on "Bulls on Parade" which he does by rubbing the strings with one hand and alternating turned-up and muted pickups with the other. The instrumental on "Testify" has him using the ''amplifier jack'' and hitting the guitar bridge with it. He once spoke in an interview of arriving at the Fender factory to take possession of a custom guitar he'd ordered and seeing another similar one being brought back; when informed that it had defective electronics that caused unwanted noises, he bought it as well.
78	* PoliticalRap: The MO of Zack.
79	* PerformanceVideo: Several include snippets, but "Sleep Now in the Fire" deserves an honorary mention, with the band playing on the steps of Federal Hall. Without a permit. It was also directed by Creator/MichaelMoore.
80	* ProtestSong: The whole discography, to varying degrees of specificity.
81	* RapMetal: TropeCodifier alongside Music/{{Anthrax}}.
82	* SanitySlippageSong:
83	** Possibly "Settle for Nothing", judging by the lyrics.
84	** "Born of a Broken Man" is also based on Zack's father's SanitySlippage.
85	* ShoutOut: Several, perhaps most obviously to Creator/GeorgeOrwell. "Testify", for example, lifts the famous quote "Who controls the past now controls the future; who controls the present now controls the past" from ''Literature/NineteenEightyFour''.
86	* SingingVoiceDissonance: Zack speaks rather quietly when there isn't a microphone in front of him, which can be rather jarring for those used to his high-decibel screams.
87	* SirSwearsALot: So fond of cursing is Zack that when the program for the band's 1993 European tour gave light-hearted titles to every member of the band, his was "A Gentleman Who Sayeth 'Fucke' A Lotte".
88	* SpecialGuest: Maynard James Keenan of Music/{{Tool}} and Music/APerfectCircle makes an appearance on the bridge of "Know Your Enemy".
89	* SpellingSong: "Know Your Enemy", "Mic Check".
90	** Also arguably "Microphone Fiend"; however, this is a cover song.
91	* SpiritualSuccessor: Prophets of Rage, a supergroup that included the entire lineup of Rage Against the Machine minus Zack, played stylistically similar music with the same politically charged lyrics. They also performed RATM songs live.
92	* SpokenWordInMusic: "Settle for Nothing", "Born of a Broken Man".
93	** "Wake Up" also has a spoken-word bridge, where Zack reads an FBI memo from J Edgar Hoover describing the COINTELPRO program. The words dissolve into nigh-incomprehensibility before the guitars suddenly turn up again and Zack starts screaming "WAKE UP!!!" 8 times.
94	** In live performances, Zack often replaces this section with a political speech.
95	* TemptingFate: When "Killing in the Name" experienced a surge in popularity due to the 2009 Christmas race, the band performed it on BBC Radio [=5Live=] with instruction from the hosts to censor the song's ending ClusterFBomb. During the start of the section, Zack seemingly complied, simply saying "I won't do what you tell me" with no "Fuck you" at the start, but as the section reached its climax, he repeatedly screamed the full line, "fuck" included. The hosts issued public apologies afterwards.
96	* TitleOnlyChorus: "Know Your Enemy". Although most of the chorus is taken up by Morello's admittedly awesome riff, the actual vocal bits just consist of the one line from de la Rocha, which is of course...
97	* TitledAfterTheSong: "Rage Against the Machine" was the name of a song (and EP) by Zack de la Rocha's previous band, the punk outfit Inside Out.
98	* TropeNamer: Rage Against The X is a popular trope name on this wiki.
99	* UncommonTime: One of the riffs from "Year of tha Boomerang" is in 5/4.

Context Music / RageAgainstTheMachine