Evil Empire is the second studio album by American rock band Rage Against the Machine, released by Epic Records on April 16, 1996. It debuted at number 1 on the US Billboard 200 chart with first week 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 Recording Industry Association of America.
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. The boy on the cover was author and businessman Ari Meisel when he was 11 years old. Meisel told Kerrang! that the original painting was a birthday present from Ramos. 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, which include:
In 1995, the band sent a free 7″ record to everyone who signed up for the fan club promoted in the liner notes of their debut. Doubling as an apology to those who had received nothing and a promotion for the upcoming album, it came in a plain cardboard-colored fold-out with a black-and-white American flag on the cover alongside the band's name and "Evil Empire" in capital letters. On the back cover was a UPC with marker scribble on the barcode. The A-side was a reissue of the Evening Session-version of "Bombtrack" first broadcast on June 7, 1993 (listed as "Bombtrack (Live on the BBC)"), and the B-side was a then-unreleased cover of N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police" that was recorded live on August 13, 1995, at a benefit concert for Mumia Abu-Jamal at the Capitol Ballroom in Washington, D.C. As with the band's debut, five singles were released in total.
Rolling Stone said that "This music isn't supposed to be fun," and continued: "Rage Against the Machine have jacked up the sociopolitical siege mentality in their metallic hip - hop to such a dogmatic degree - and honed their sound to such maniacally shrill perfection - that the band and the roaring joys of its harangue 'n' roll seem virtually sexless."
All lyrics are written by Zack de la Rocha; all music is composed by Rage Against the Machine
Rage Against the Machine
Technical
Artwork and design
* Sales figures based on certification alone.^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.