How Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Evil Empire’ unified the masses
Evil Empire was Rage Against the Machine’s second studio album, released in 1996.
In 1996, Rage Against the Machine released their album Evil Empire, and as World Cafe correspondent John Morrison says, it was a unifying moment.
“Everybody in all the, like, little cliques in my school as a kid liked this record,” he says. “Punks liked it. Hip-hop kids liked it. Metalheads liked it. And I think that is one of the most inspired, quintessential mainstream rock records of the ’90s.”
Today on The Culture Corner, Morrison digs into that album as it turns 30 years old. We talk about why it had such broad appeal, and why it still feels just as vital and as it did when it came out three decades ago.
This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe‘s engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.