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.
“We just happen to be the band who have been able to create this open space within pop music,” vocalist Zack de la Rocha said in 1999, “and try to set in motion a new era where more dissident voices in commercial music can become part
