Rage Against The Machine Returns To Billboard 200 And iTunes Top 10 Amid Nationwide Protests, Conservative Backlash

The revolution may not be televised, but it will be soundtracked.

As protesters across the United States continue to demand justice for George Floyd, the unarmed black man killed by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, they are turning to songs of liberation and revolution. Last week saw massive Spotify gains for Childish Gambino, Kendrick Lamar and other artists on the platform’s popular Black Lives Matter playlist. This week, funk-metal firebrands Rage Against the Machine have bounded back onto the Billboard 200 and the iTunes’ Top Albums chart.

The band’s self-titled debut album lands at No. 174 on this week’s Billboard 200, and as of Thursday afternoon, it’s reached No. 8 on iTunes’ Top Albums chart. Released in November 1992, Rage Against the Machine catapulted the band to stardom. Though it only peaked at No. 45 on the Billboard 200, it topped the Heatseekers chart and was ultimately certified 3x platinum by the RIAA. The band’s next two albums, Evil Empire and The Battle of Los Angeles, both topped the Billboard 200.

The last three decades have not diluted Rage Against the Machine’s righteous fury and sonic assault one iota. The album is best known for incendiary lead single “Killing in the Name,” in which frontman Zack de la Rocha likens police officers to the Ku Klux Klan, singing, “Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses.” The band released the song six months after the 1992 Los Angeles Riots, which stemmed from the acquittal of the four white police officers who beat Rodney King. It has proven depressingly evergreen, with calls to defund the police currently reaching a fever pitch across the nation.

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To miss Rage Against the Machine’s revolutionary politics would require an act of willful ignorance. (This is, after all, the band that burned an American flag onstage at Woodstock 1999.) But the group’s radical message was apparently lost on conservative listeners, some of whom criticized guitarist Tom Morello on social media this week and got promptly eviscerated by the axeman himself.

Perhaps listeners more aligned with the band’s politics repurchased their first album just to spite conservative listeners who were offended by their radical message. Or maybe protesters just needed some good pump-up music before they went to topple Christopher Columbus statues (which Morello fully endorses, by the way).

Rage Against the Machine dominated headlines when they announced a reunion tour late last year. The group was scheduled to headline Coachella 2020 and hit arenas across the country; last month, they rescheduled the trek for summer 2021 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

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