Rocktrospectiva: The Raw And Sociopowerful "Evil Empire" Turns 30

Released on 16 April 1996 "Evil Empire" was the second studio album by the US rock band Rage Against the Machine. It debuted at number 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart and the song "Tire Me" won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance; "Bulls on Parade", "People of the Sun" and "Vietnow" were released as singles. The album's title is a reference to a term used in the early 1980s by President Ronald Reagan and many American conservatives to describe the Soviet Union.

According to MTV News, 'Evil Empire' is taken from Ronald Reagan's epithet of the Soviet Union, which the band feels could just as easily apply to the United States: The title actually came from a speech by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s, and he addressed the Soviet Union as the "evil empire". If you look at the atrocities committed by the U.S. in the latter half of the 20th century, we feel that tag could be easily used to describe the U.S.

The track "Without a Face" that was featured on the band's 1998 Live & Rare album, Zack de la Rocha said: "It seems as if soon as the... the wall in Germany fell, that the US government was busy building another one on the border between the US and Mexico. Since 1986, as a result of a lot of the hate talk and hysteria that the government of the United States has been speaking, 1,500 bodies have been found on the border. We wrote this song in response to it." "Year of tha Boomerang" had previously been included in the film Higher Learning, though its title was written as "Year of the Boomerang" on the packaging of the film's soundtrack, as well as that of the song's promotional single.

The cover of the album features an altered version of a painting of the 1940s–1950s comic book hero Crimebuster done by Mel Ramos, with the emblem on the boy's costume changed from a "c" to a lowercase "e", the caption "Crime Buster" changed to the album's title, and the color of the star in the background changed. The boy on the cover was author and businessman Ari Meisel when he was 11 years old. 

Critics affirmed that the album contained music isn't supposed to be fun, and quoted the band as the best representators to trasnmit the sociopolitical siege mentality in their metallic hip – hop, others concluded that "Evil Empire succeeded only on the level of a sonic assault. Curiously, Andrew Flory and John Covach, in their book What's That Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and Its History declared the album is what cemented the band as "an important force in the rap-rock style.

 

Evil Empire Track List:

 

1. People Of The Sun

2. Bulls On Parade

3. Vietnow

4. Revolver

5. Snakecharmer 

6. Tire Me

7. Down Rodeo

8. Without A Face

9. Wind Below

10. Roll Right

11. Year Of Tha Boomerang