By 1999, Rage Against The Machine were well established as one of the most important and influential bands of the decade. Their revolutionary amalgam of huge, heavy guitar riffs, inescapably propulsive grooves and furiously righteous, rapped vocals were utterly unique and inadvertently created a blueprint for what would become the nu metal movement.
But, although nu metal was currently the dominant style in alternative music, it had long since ceased to represent the ideals that drove Rage’s music. While Limp Bizkit were doing it for the nookie, Rage’s entire reason for existing was to raise awareness and attempt to bring about societal change, so the band were unsurprisingly unimpressed by the state of the music that now surrounded them.
