Neo is inside a phone booth in the finale of the first episode of The Matrix. He talks to someone or something and says, “I don’t know what the future will be like. I know that this is not the end: it is the beginning. I just know that I will show people a world without borders and limits.” He hangs up, comes out of the booth, and “Wake Up” by Rage Against the Machine starts, and with it a rush of adrenaline that gives you crazy goosebumps.
Rage Against the Machine-for friends RATM-was a rock/rap rock/rapcore band of rare sonic power and unparalleled impact. Thanks to the very strong personalities of their two frontmen – singer Zac de la Rocha and guitarist Tom Morello – and also thanks to the strong politicization that each of their albums had, no one could remain indifferent to them. Their every song was a proclamation, their every album a manifesto. Generally for the environment and against power. For freedom and free expression.
Their timbre was unmistakable, Zac’s voice was powerful, shouted, desperate, Tom’s guitar was pyrotechnic, distorted, at times speaking in an almost human voice. Each track a musical invention made up of irresistible riffs and lots of sonic TNT.
Disbanded in 2006 and reforming on and off until the announced reformation for this year, RATM has always been able to make people talk about themselves as well as speak and shout very loudly with their music.
Famous remains the video of“Sleep now in the Fire” shot by Michael Moore divanti at the New York Stock Exchange on a trading Wednesday. The performance was obviously unauthorized and ended with policemen deterring them (at first) and arresting them later. And with the stock market closed and trading suspended because of the frenzy they had created.
“Fight the Power” can be read between the lines of their name: with music, with power, with protest and with a good dose of fun.