The Battle Of Los Angeles

RAGE AGINST THE MACHINE Released Their Ferocious 3rd Album ‘THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES’ 25 Years Ago

Posted on by JL

3 November 2024

Metallic rap-crossover-rock generator RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE released their
third LP THE BATTLES OF LOS ANGELES 25 years ago today, on 2 November 1999.

A volcanic powerhouse, a ferocious protest manifesto, an injustice attacking monster,
a non-stop verbal and sonic explosion that went straight to No 1 on the US Albums Chart. Both Time and Rolling Stone Magazine named it the best album of 1999.

Rolling Stone wrote: “Rage Against the Machine are pushing an agenda as strong
as any religion’s, and its argument hinges on a specific rhetorical style. ‘The Battle of
Los Angeles’ offers no change lyrically from Rage’s two previous albums: There are no
love songs, just abused altar boys; no cries of alienation, just calls to arms for peasant
Mexican rebels… the band’s notoriously feuding members have come together to produce
a sound that’s not quite louder than a bomb but that’s definitely as loud as Led Zeppelin II.”
Full review here. Score: 4/5

KEY SINGLE

ALBUM


.
RATM: Instagram – All Albums

Album Tracks That Should Have Been Singles – ‘BORN AS GHOSTS’ By RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE (1999)

Posted on by JL

Band: RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

Album: THE BATTLE OF LOS ANGELES
Their 3rd one, released 25 years ago,
on 2 November 1999. No. 1 in the US.
3 singles: Guerilla Radio, Sleep Now In
The Fire and Testify.

Track: BORN AS GHOSTS

The hills find peace, locked armed guard posts
Safe from the screams of the children born as ghosts
Gates guns and alarms, shape the calm of the dawn
Peering down into the basin where death lives on
When young run foaming at the mouth with hate
When burning batons beat the freezing who shake
Under the toxic sunsets they dine and toast
Of walls deny the terror faced
By the children born as ghosts

Born as ghosts
A warning, you sufferers, begin to speak our word
Born as ghosts
A warning, you sufferers, begin to speak our word
Born as ghosts


RAGTM: Linktree

(Image: cover of their ‘Best Ever’ LP)

TODAY’S YESTERDAY ALBUM – Here’s RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE With ‘The Battle Of Los Angeles’…

Posted on by JL

Memorable longplayers from the past…

‘The Battle Of Los Angeles’
RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Released: 2 November 1999
Third album

ROLLING STONE wrote: “There are no love songs, just abused altar boys. No cries of alienation, just calls to arms for peasant Mexican rebels. The fact that music about events so removed from the lives of most American teens has become immensely successful speaks to Rage’s preaching style: They come armed not with a sword but with a microphone. RATM may never ignite the youth war they want to see. But at last, with The Battle of Los Angeles, they’ve managed to win a war within — one in which the band’s notoriously feuding members have come together to produce a sound that’s not quite louder than a bomb but that’s definitely as loud as Led Zeppelin II.” – Score: 4/5

TURN UP THE VOLUME‘s favorite track: SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE …

Album in full…

.
RATM: Website – Facebook – Discography


RATM at Woodstock Festival 1999 – looks rather like 2018…