YMMV / Rage Against the Machine

• Awesome Music: Pick any famous song by them, and it'll probably get you really riled up just based on each song's intensity and badassery.
• Cargo Ship: Tom Morello x Arm the Homeless, apparently. More people might have noticed if the music wasn't so badass. (Tom's "Arm the Homeless" guitar is the one he uses for the band's F#-minor songs, like "Bulls on Parade", "Guerrilla Radio", "Know Your Enemy" and "Bombtrack", among others.)
• Covered Up: Not as big of an example as others, but some people think "How I Could Just Kill a Man" and "Renegades of Funk" are RATM songs, when they belong to Cypress Hill and Afrika Bambaataa & the Soulsonic Force respectively.
• Executive Meddling: Notoriously, their entire discography was on the 2001 Clear Channel memorandum, a list of songs considered inappropriate to play on the radio in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. They were the only artist to have all their songs included on the list, although it was not a formal ban but rather a suggestion to Clear Channel Radio's program directors.
• First Installment Wins: While later albums like Evil Empire and The Battle of Los Angeles had several famous songs like "Bulls on Parade", "People of the Sun", "Guerilla Radio" and "Sleep Now in the Fire", their self-titled first album is still considered their best by a long shot.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The video for "Sleep Now in the Fire" (directed by Michael Moore) features a man with the sign "Donald Trump for President", referencing his 2000 Presidential campaign for the Reform Party. Guess who became President in 2016?
  • The same video ends with a quote from a man who misnames the band “The Machine Rages On” and calls them “Anti-family and Pro-terrorist.” That man was Gary Bauer who in 2018 was appointed by Trump to the Commission on International Religious Freedom.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME! ^note  MOTHERFUCKER!
  • "The famously apolitical Rage Against the Machine" ^note In recent years, there have been complaints from people of particular political orientations expressing annoyance over how politically outspoken the band are outside of band activities, wishing thet'd just stick to playing the music they like, often ignoring the fact that the band has always had this stance.
  • "Rage for/in behalf of the Machine" ^note Detractors started to refer to the band as such, pointing out the members' political leanings and their difference in tune between political administrations. Like the above, this often comes from people of specific political leanings.
• Misaimed Fandom: They really, really reacted poorly to Paul Ryan claiming to be a fan. In general, a lot of fans also just like the music and don't pay attention to the band's politics.
  • Tom Morello responded to a video Trump supporters dancing to "Killing in the Name" in Philadelphia with, "Not what we had in mind..." He has also referred to Donald Trump as an "orange-faced demagogue."
• Moment of Awesome:
  • During their show at the Dutch Pinkpop festival in 1993, the crowd jumped so hard and in unison, it registered as an earthquake (1.0 Richter).
  • A grassroots movement sought to take their song "Killing in the Name" to the Christmas number one spot in Britain, and, by extension, prevent the winner of The X Factor from getting it, which had been the case for the past four consecutive years. It succeeded, outselling the #2 by 50,000 sales with downloads alone. Made more awesome by the band donating their earnings from the sales to charity and celebrating their victory by announcing a free gig in the UK in 2010.
  • Their show in Santiago, Chile in 2010, which Tom Morello described as the craziest crowd he's ever seen for anyone, anywhere. Have a look at it.
  • Tim climbing onto the set piece of the 2000 VMAs after their video lost to Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" out of protest, just a month before the band disbanded. Whether you think it was right or wrong, that's a pretty ballsy thing to do.
• Narm Charm: Due to all the angrish and anviliciousness, especially a couple decades removed from when it was first produced...
• Refrain from Assuming: It's "Bulls on Parade", not "Pocket Full of Shells".
• Signature Song: "Killing in the Name", seeing as it is the band's Breakthrough Hit. "Bulls on Parade" is a close second.
• Song Association: "Wake Up" was famously used in the end credits of The Matrix.
• Tear Jerker: "Born of a Broken Man", "Darkness of Greed", "Settle for Nothing", "Maria" and their cover of "Beautiful World" by Devo.
• Values Resonance: "Killing in the Name" was originally written in response to the Rodney King case, wherein several cops harshly beat the black activist, and the officers responsible ended up being acquitted in a trial, sparking the 1992 LA Riots. The song's argument that "some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses" references many instances in which members of the police were involved in the Ku Klux Klan. This leads to the song resonating with the Black Lives Matter movement as a protest against the continuing legacy of police violence towards Black Americans.

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