April 16 marked the 30-year anniversary of Rage Against The Machine’s politically rebellious album “Evil Empire,” featuring the hit single “Bulls On Parade.” The record that sent the band into stardom created a movement that would later become its legacy.
Many listeners have said “Evil Empire” is not an easy listen. The album falls into the direction of hip-hop and post-hardcore, shying away from the band’s previous genres of rock and hip-hop. With that, the album also skyrockets in political defensiveness above its predecessor.
The title “Evil Empire” was placed on the album in response to a speech made by former President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. In that speech, Reagan had referred to the Soviet Union as the “evil empire,” a label that the band believed could be used to describe the United States.
In addition to the progressive album name, the cover is intended to resemble an ironic symbolization of the US power structure. Featured in the album’s booklet, lead singer Zack de la Rocha stated, “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.”
The Mid-90s era found Rage Against the Machine pushing boundaries in many ways. Promoting “Evil Empire,” the group performed on Saturday Night Live alongside billionaire and presidential candidate Steve Forbes. To protest the host of the evening, Rage Against the Machine attempted to hang upside-down American flags on their amps. Seconds before airing, the flags were forcibly removed by the show’s staff. The band was restricted from playing a second song, and a backstage dispute led them to be banned from Saturday Night Live for good.
This wasn’t the only time that Rage Against the Machine would protest the US government. Prior to a 1996 live performance of “Without a Face,” Zack de la Rocha made a statement saying, “It seems as if soon as 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.”
“Evil Empire” set a new tone for Rage Against the Machine. The album followed a four-year hiatus after the band’s debut release and debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The song “Tire Me” won Rage Against the Machine a 1996 Grammy for Best Metal Performance. In 2024, it was named the best hard rock album of 1996 by Loudwire.
