Evil Empire (album)

According to MTV News, "The title 'Evil Empire' is taken from what Rage Against The Machine see as Ronald Reagan's slander of the Soviet Union in the eighties, which the band feels could just as easily apply to the United States."{{cite web|title=Rage Builds "Evil Empire"|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1433600/rage-builds-evil-empire.jhtml|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111203032142/http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1433600/rage-builds-evil-empire.jhtml|url-status=dead|archive-date=December 3, 2011|work=MTV|publisher=MTV.com|access-date=28 February 2022|date=May 3, 1996}}

{{Blockquote|text=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.|author=Zack de la Rocha{{Cite web |date=2023-05-04 |title=It's Happening Now But People Don't See It – Zack de la Rocha on Challenging The System |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9raTwE8-12A |access-date=2023-11-28 |website=YouTube |language=en}}}}

Before the May 27, 1996, performance of "Without a Face" that is 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.

{{Blockquote|text=The image of the second record was a little more ironic, you know? Considering if you look very closely at the boy's face, he symbolizes the power structure in the U.S.—and if you look at him, he's smiling as if he's in control—but if you look deeper into his face, you see that he's afraid, because he knows what's coming. He knows that poor people in the U.S. are not going to suffer in the way that they are suffering without taking action.|author=Zack de la Rocha{{Cite web |date=2023-05-04 |title=It's Happening Now But People Don't See It – Zack de la Rocha on Challenging The System |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9raTwE8-12A |access-date=2023-11-28 |website=YouTube |language=en}}}}

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. Meisel told Kerrang! that the original painting was a birthday present from Ramos.{{cite web|url=http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/01/11/rage-against-the-machine-evil-empire-album-cover-art-was-called-crime-buster|title=Rage Against The Machine "Evil Empire" Album Cover Art Was Originally Called "Crime Buster"|date=January 11, 2011|website=FeelNumb|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130209043955/http://www.feelnumb.com/2011/01/11/rage-against-the-machine-evil-empire-album-cover-art-was-called-crime-buster|archive-date=February 9, 2013|url-status=dead|access-date=June 10, 2023}}{{cite web|last=Krovatin|first=Chris|url=https://www.kerrang.com/what-the-kid-from-the-cover-of-evil-empire-looks-like-now|title=What the kid from the cover of Rage Against The Machine's Evil Empire looks like now|date=April 16, 2021|website=Kerrang!|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220105041419/https://www.kerrang.com/what-the-kid-from-the-cover-of-evil-empire-looks-like-now|archive-date=January 5, 2022|url-status=live|access-date=June 10, 2023}} Additional artwork for the album was created by Barbara Kruger, some of which appears in the video for "Bulls on Parade".

The album's CD booklet includes a picture of a pile of various political and philosophical books, which include:{{cite web|url=http://www.ratm.net/book.html|title=Rage Against the Machine: Book List|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111117050008/http://www.ratm.net/book.html|archive-date=2011-11-17|url-status=dead|access-date=2011-11-19}}

• A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
• Capital, Volume I by Karl Marx
• A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
• The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
• Guerrilla Warfare by Che Guevara
• Revolutionary Suicide by Huey P. Newton
• Soul on Ice by Eldridge Cleaver
• The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
• Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler
• Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky
• Live from Death Row by Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
• Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism by Alexander Berkman
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• Rules for Radicals by Saul D. Alinsky
• Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson by George Jackson
• Walden and Resistance to Civil Government by Henry David Thoreau
• Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
• Another Country by James Baldwin

In 1995, the band sent a free 7″ record to everyone who signed up for the fan club promoted in the liner notes of their debut. Doubling as an apology to those who had received nothing and a promotion for the upcoming album, it came in a plain cardboard-colored fold-out with a black-and-white American flag on the cover alongside the band's name and "Evil Empire" in capital letters. On the back cover was a UPC with marker scribble on the barcode. The A-side was a reissue of the Evening Session-version of "Bombtrack" first broadcast on June 7, 1993 (listed as "Bombtrack (Live on the BBC)"), and the B-side was a then-unreleased cover of N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police" that was recorded live on August 13, 1995, at a benefit concert for Mumia Abu-Jamal at the Capitol Ballroom in Washington, D.C. {{cn|date=April 2024}}

{{expand section|date=April 2019}}

{{Music ratings

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1Score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite web|last=Erlewine|first=Stephen Thomas|author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine|url=http://www.allmusic.com/album/evil-empire-mw0000647704|title=Evil Empire – Rage Against the Machine|publisher=AllMusic|access-date=February 15, 2012}}

| rev2 = Chicago Tribune

| rev2Score = {{Rating|3|4}}{{cite news|last=Kot|first=Greg|author-link=Greg Kot|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/1996/04/25/saved-by-a-guitar/|title=Saved By a Guitar|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|date=April 25, 1996|access-date=August 13, 2016}}

| rev3 = Entertainment Weekly

| rev3Score = A−{{cite magazine|last=Sinclair|first=Tom|url=https://ew.com/article/1996/04/19/evil-empire/|title=Evil Empire|magazine=Entertainment Weekly|date=April 19, 1996|access-date=February 15, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191021234948/https://ew.com/article/1996/04/19/evil-empire/|archive-date=October 21, 2019|url-status=dead}}

| rev4 = Houston Chronicle

| rev4Score = {{Rating|4|5}}{{cite news|last=Chirazi|first=Steffan|url=https://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/POP-CDS-Richard-Thompson-Broods-And-Rocks-on-2986404.php|title=Rage Keeps Politics, Adds Stronger Music|newspaper=Houston Chronicle|date=April 14, 1996|access-date=April 13, 2020}}

| rev5 = Los Angeles Times

| rev5Score = {{Rating|3.5|4}}{{cite news|last=Cromelin|first=Richard|url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-04-14-ca-58322-story.html|title=Rage Against the Machine 'Evil Empire' Epic|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=April 14, 1996|access-date=August 13, 2016}}

| rev6 = NME

| rev6Score = 5/10{{cite journal|last=Cigarettes|first=Johnny|url=http://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/19980101000673reviews.html|title=Rage Against the Machine – Evil Empire|journal=NME|date=April 13, 1996|access-date=January 16, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000817181817/http://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/19980101000673reviews.html|archive-date=August 17, 2000|url-status=dead}}

| rev7 = Pitchfork

| rev7Score = 6.1/10{{cite web|last=Schreiber|first=Ryan|url=http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/rage-against-the-machine/evil-empire.shtml|title=Rage Against The Machine: Evil Empire|work=Pitchfork|date=April 1996|access-date=December 21, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051031192802/http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/rage-against-the-machine/evil-empire.shtml|archive-date=October 31, 2005|url-status=dead}}

| rev8 = Rolling Stone

| rev8Score = {{Rating|3|5}}{{cite magazine|last=Wiederhorn|first=Jon|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/evil-empire-19960418|title=Evil Empire|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=April 18, 1996|access-date=March 7, 2012}}

| rev9 = Spin

| rev9Score = 8/10{{cite journal|last=Gold|first=Jonathan|author-link=Jonathan Gold|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SXQ6nPE3H9wC&pg=PA103|title=Rage Against the Machine: Evil Empire|journal=Spin|volume=12|issue=2|date=May 1996|access-date=March 7, 2012|page=103}}

| rev10 = The Village Voice

| rev10Score = A−{{cite news|last=Christgau|first=Robert|author-link=Robert Christgau|url=http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/cg/cgv796-96.php|title=Consumer Guide|newspaper=The Village Voice|date=July 23, 1996|access-date=August 13, 2016}}

}}

Rolling Stone said that "This music isn't supposed to be fun," and continued: "Rage Against the Machine have jacked up the sociopolitical siege mentality in their metallic hip – hop to such a dogmatic degree – and honed their sound to such maniacally shrill perfection – that the band and the roaring joys of its harangue 'n' roll seem virtually sexless."Rolling Stone Yearbook, 26 December 1996–9 January 1997

The album was said to have cemented Rage Against the Machine as "an important force in the rap-rock style.{{cite book |last1=Flory |first1=Andrew |last2=Covach |first2=John |title=What's That Sound?: An Introduction to Rock and Its History |date=July 1, 2022 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |page=483 |edition=Sixth}}

{{Track listing

| total_length = 46:34

| all_lyrics = Zack de la Rocha

| all_music = Rage Against the Machine

| title1 = People of the Sun

| length1 = 2:30

| title2 = Bulls on Parade

| length2 = 3:49

| title3 = Vietnow

| length3 = 4:39

| title4 = Revolver

| length4 = 5:30

| title5 = Snakecharmer

| length5 = 3:56

| title6 = Tire Me

| length6 = 3:00

| title7 = Down Rodeo

| length7 = 5:20

| title8 = Without a Face

| length8 = 3:36

| title9 = Wind Below

| length9 = 5:50

| title10 = Roll Right

| length10 = 4:22

| title11 = Year of tha Boomerang

| length11 = 4:02

}}

Rage Against the Machine

• Zack de la Rocha – vocals
• Tom Morello – guitars
• Tim Commerford (credited as "Tim Bob") – bass
• Brad Wilk – drums

Technical

• Brendan O'Brien – production
• Rage Against the Machine – co-production
• Andy Wallace – mixing
• Nick DiDia – engineering, recording
• Caram Costanzo – engineering
• Clay Harper – assistant engineering
• Dave Rat – recording ("Down Rodeo" vocals)
• Paul Kosky – recording ("Down Rodeo" vocals)
• Bob Ludwig – mastering

Artwork and design

• Rage Against the Machine – art direction
• Aimée Macauley – art direction
• Lisa Johnson – photography

• Cole Rehearsal Studios, Los Angeles, CA – recording
• Kiss Music Recording Studios, Melbourne – recording ("Down Rodeo" vocals)
• The Enterprise – mixing
• Gateway Mastering Studios – mastering

{{Certification Table Top|caption=Certifications for Evil Empire}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Australia|relyear=1996|certyear=1996|type=album|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Austria|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=The Evil Empire|relyear=1996|certyear=2001|type=album|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Belgium|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|certyear=1996|type=album|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Canada|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|type=album|award=Platinum}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=France|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|certyear=1996|type=album|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=New Zealand|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|certyear=1996|type=album|id=1996-08-02|source=newchart|access-date=2024-11-20|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Spain|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|award=Gold|type=album|relyear=1996|certyear=1996|certref={{cite book |last=Salaverrie |first=Fernando |date=September 2005 |url=http://www.mediafire.com/file/pd758fesp2w7i7f/Spanish+Certifications+for+1996-1999.pdf |title=Sólo éxitos: año a año, 1959–2002 |language=es |edition=1st |location=Madrid |publisher=Fundación Autor/SGAE |page=940 |isbn=84-8048-639-2 |access-date=6 October 2019}}}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Sweden|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|relmonth=4|type=album|award=Gold|source=artist}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Switzerland|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|relyear=1996|certyear=2001|type=album|award=Gold}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|type=album|award=Gold|id=2155-893-2}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|artist=Rage Against the Machine|title=Evil Empire|type=album|award=Platinum|number=3}}

{{Certification Table Bottom}}

• 1997 Grammy Award – Best Metal Performance for "Tire Me"

• Ronald Reagan in music

{{Reflist}}

• {{AllMusic |class=album |id=mw0000647704 |label=Evil Empire}}

{{Rage Against the Machine}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:1996 albums

Category:Albums produced by Brendan O'Brien (record producer)

Category:Epic Records albums

Category:Rage Against the Machine albums