I was at a gig the other week and between bands they played Rage Against the Machine's self-titled debut. It was playing too loud for conversation, so all the non-smokers were just stood there enjoying it and remembering what a great album it is. I, for one, had long forgotten how great it is; I'd loved it back in the day and listened to it so often I didn't feel I had to anymore - I knew it backwards. However, in those years that passed with Rage only being played sporadically, my memory of what an excellent album this is faded. It's now 20 years old and it still blows me away.
I'd never heard of Rage Against the Machine until the 29th of December 1999, when some friends and I had gone record shopping in the many second-hand shops of Bournemouth. I'd filled out my Manics collection (on cd) and picked up Ignition by The Offspring. Hugh bought a couple of cds, one of them Rage's debut and their name first passed my ears as we stood outside the shop comparing our purchases. Back then we all taped each other's cds so I recorded Hugh's copy and eventually bought a copy a year later when a friend's brother was shifting all of his cds for a fiver each (I think he'd recorded them all onto mini-disc, a move he'd surely come to regret). A year or so later I was in Newbury Comics in Boston, found the LP and picked it up along with some Tool records, Gorilla Biscuits and a Rival Schools 7"). I knew it was a classic and was pretty pleased to have it on vinyl (the album has one of the most brutal covers out there - not many records have an actual picture of a man dying on the front, although that's probably a good thing).
Now, nearly 13 years after first hearing this album, it's still incredible. As soon as each song starts it's nearly impossible to not drum along or mime the bass or guitar or rap every single word that Zach spits. I could never listen to this album when I was revising for exams because it makes it so hard to focus on the task at hand. Years later it's still stealing my attention. Sure, lines like "fuck you I won't do what you tell me" sound a little cliché these days, but the songs are so good you just don't care. I couldn't possibly list my favourite songs as there's not a bad one on there, but Bombtrack, Take the Power Back and the outro to Bullet in the Head always stayed with me.
Rage were up there with the first bands I ever saw live - my 8th gig was the Sunday of Reading Festival in 2000 where we saw, what would be for a while at least, Rage's last UK show - and they were incredible. The pit down the front was ferocious and I cautiously stayed a bit further back. I remember taking comfort in the fact I wasn't the only one also "singing" the guitar bits. I would see them two more times, including the free Finsbury Park "Thank You" show for getting them the Christmas number one spot. A lot of people I knew were against the campaign to get RATM to number one citing such arguments as "when did you last care about who had the number one single?", etc (even arguing it was unfair to the X-Factor winner). However, I was all for the idea, to the extent I even downloaded a song I have the mp3 of. Yes, I've not given a shit about the singles chart in a very long time, but as a kid I certainly did, and I loved the idea that people could come together to affect something like that. I get the point of X-Factor, but I'm not it's target audience and hope I never am, so it pleases me to see people with fond memories of non-pop music taking the power back, as it were.
Musically it was excellent, but in other ways the Finsbury Park show was an odd one. I figured the audience would be much younger, but I'd say that on average the crowd were the same age as me and upwards. It made me a bit sad to think that in the years since Rage broke up kids just weren't getting into them. The idea of passing through your teenage years without Killing in the Name just seems wrong.
This album has just been re-issued in a variety of formats, and the 2cd+dvd package looks pretty nice. The deluxe boxset looks even nicer, but probably out of my price range for an album I already have two copies of. If I didn't own this LP I'd probably be more tempted (it also comes with the dvd of the Finsbury Park gig, which would be nice to re-live).
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 10
Cost: £6.30 new
Bought: Newbury Comics, Boston
When: 05/08/02
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: no
