Overview
During the 1990s and 2000s, rock musicians began mixing and matching genres to create new sounds and styles. In this lesson, we consider several different rock music hybrids. In the first section, we will look at the music of artists who combined rock instrumentation with rapped lyrics. In the second section, we will look at two artists who drew from rock as well as genres including (but not limited to) hip-hop, experimental music, blues, folk, funk, and classical music.
Objectives
- Recall how the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and Kid Rock combined the aesthetics of rap and rock in their music
- Recall the eclectic musical styles of Radiohead and Beck in the context of the many different genres they drew upon in their music
Rap Meets Rock continued
Rage Against the Machine, a band from Los Angeles, blended the hard edge and speed of thrash metal with rapped lyrics to create a new sound and style. They were proud of the fact that they did not use any samples, synthesizers, or keyboards in their music, and they included notes to that effect in the liner notes for all of their albums. Although their sound is inspired by the sounds of hip-hop, they did not use the production techniques of hip-hop such as sampling and record scratching to create their music. Instead, they emulated the styles of hip-hop using rock instruments.
Lead vocalist Zack De La Rocha delivered blistering raps on a variety of left-wing political causes while guitarist Tom Morello blended many different styles, including funk, metal, blues, and hip-hop. Morello would slide along the strings of the guitar in order to create a sound that emulated the sound of a hip-hop DJ scratching records on a turntable. Morello also uses a number of other techniques when playing, such as the wah-wah pedal, a delay pedal that allows him to create reverb-like sounds on the spot, and a digital effects pedal that allows him to shift the guitar's pitch by using a foot pedal. The band's name captures the anger the group expressed against what they perceived as oppressive or fascist governments or institutions.
Their first album was 1992's Rage Against the Machine, and most of the songs address political issues. For example, the single "Bullet in the Head ♫" suggests that the American government used television and other media as a means of controlling the population, and "Know Your Enemy ♫" intimates that "submission, ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality" are all parts of the American Dream. The album's lead single, "Killing in the Name ♫," draws parallels between police brutality and institutional racism, and they speak directly to the anger many people felt in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles Riotsriots that occurred after four Los Angeles police officers who were captured on video beating an African American man named Rodney King were acquitted of all charges . In 1992, four Los Angeles police officers who were captured on video beating an African American man named Rodney King were acquitted of all charges.The anger surrounding the officers' acquittal is considered the major trigger of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, in which over fifty people were killed and businesses were destroyed and looted.
De La Rocha's lyrics are intense and explicit, alleging, "Some of those that work forces are the same that burn crosses," that is, some police officers may not only be racist but may also be members of the Ku Klux Klan. The song contains heavy guitar riff played by Morello, which is complemented by heavy, aggressive drumming and a weighty bass line.
Rage Against the Machine recorded two more albums during the 1990s: Evil Empire (1996) and The Battle of Los Angeles (1999). According to De La Rocha, the title of Evil Empire "is taken from what Rage Against the Machine sees as Ronald Reagan's slander of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, which the band feels could just as easily apply to the United States." The Battle of Los Angeles is heavily influenced by George Orwell's novel 1984, and several songs on the album quote lines from the novel and refer to Orwellian terms. Rage Against the Machine used their music as a way to protest what they saw as dangerous oppression by institutions and individuals. The group disbanded in the early 2000s, and although they have reunited for live performances from time to time, they have not recorded any new albums together since 1999.
Both the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Rage Against the Machine maintained relatively consistent stylistic approaches throughout their recording careers. Both groups combined the instrumentation and style of rock music with rapped or quasi-rapped lyrics. De La Rocha's lyrics for Rage Against the Machine are almost exclusively rapped, but Kiedis's lyrics for the Red Hot Chili Peppers range from rapped to a lyrical singing style.
“Barriers have been broken: rappers are singing, and singers are rapping. You might catch a rapper on a rock song, a pop artist on a hip-hop song - there are so many different things that are going on today. That is the same way in which we live our lives; we're all over the place. I like to try different things.”
