Evil Empire is the second studio album by the metal rap band Rage Against the Machine, released by Epic Records on April 16, 1996.
The band released 3 singles in support of their Evil Empire album: Bulls on Parade, released on February 9, 1996, People of the Sun, released on August 22, 1996, and Vietnow, released on October 10, 1997. It debuted at number 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart with sales of 249,000 copies, and the song Tire Me won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance; Bulls on Parade and People of the Sun were nominated for Grammys for Best Hard Rock Performance.
On May 24, 2000, the album was certified triple platinum by the RIAA. The album’s title is a reference to a term used in the early 1980s by President Ronald Reagan and many American conservatives to describe the Soviet Union.
According to MTV News, “The title Evil Empire is taken from what Rage Against The Machine see as Ronald Reagan’s slander of the Soviet Union in the eighties, which the band feels could just as easily apply to the United States.”
Before the May 27, 1996, performance of Without a Face that is featured on the band’s 1998 Live & Rare album, Zack de la Rocha said: “It seems as if soon as the… the wall in Germany fell, that the US government was busy building another one on the border between the US and Mexico.
Since 1986, as a result of a lot of the hate talk and hysteria that the government of the United States has been speaking, 1,500 bodies have been found on the border.
We wrote this song in response to it.”
Year of tha Boomerang had previously been included in the film Higher Learning, though its title was written as Year of the Boomerang on the packaging of the film’s soundtrack, as well as that of the song’s promotional single.
The cover of the album features an altered version of a painting of the 1940s–1950s comic book hero Crimebuster done by Mel Ramos, with the emblem on the boy’s costume changed from a “c” to a lowercase “e”, the caption Crime Buster changed to the album’s title, and the color of the star in the background changed.
Additional artwork for the album was created by Barbara Kruger, some of which appears in the video for Bulls on Parade. The album’s CD booklet includes a picture of a pile of various political and philosophical books.
Tracklist:
- People of the Sun
- Bulls on Parade
- Vietnow
- Revolver
- Snakecharmer
- Tire Me
- Down Rodeo
- Without a Face
- Wind Below
- Roll Right
- Year of tha Boomerang
All lyrics are written by Zack de la Rocha; all music is composed by Rage Against the Machine.
Rage Against the Machine
Zack de la Rocha: vocals
Tom Morello: guitars
Tim Commerford (credited as “Tim Bob”): bass
Brad Wilk: drums
Technical
Brendan O’Brien: production
Rage Against the Machine: co-production
Andy Wallace: mixing
Nick DiDia: engineering, recording
Caram Costanzo: engineering
Clay Harper: assistant engineering
Dave Rat: recording (“Down Rodeo” vocals)
Paul Kosky: recording (“Down Rodeo” vocals)
Bob Ludwig: mastering
Artwork and design
Rage Against the Machine: art direction
Aimée Macauley: art direction
Lisa Johnson: photography
Recording locations
Cole Rehearsal Studios, Los Angeles, CA: recording
Kiss Music Recording Studios, Melbourne, Australia: recording (“Down Rodeo” vocals)
The Enterprise: mixing
Gateway Mastering Studios: mastering
