RATM and anything Tom Morello related

[captainofbeef]

Discuss this great band and one of the best guitarists ever here.

[captainofbeef]

Has anyone heard Morello when he turns into his alter ego, The Nightwatchman? Its like political folk music with a Morello touch. Its really good!

[blackmoses]

RGTM is one of best bands ever!
All their songs are amazing!
I wish I could go to one of their concerts It would probly be the best thing ever!

[captainofbeef]

Ya, it definitley would. Audioslave does not compare to them at all. And De la Rocha has disappeared. So, it doesnt look like we will be seeing a reunion any time soon.

[blackmoses]

lol.
I'll get them back together!

[captainofbeef]

Lol, ok. You get right on that.

[blackmoses]

It wont take me long.

[captainofbeef]

I believe you. Get them to tour this summer also.

[PTAhole]

Audioslave is okay. Both Rage and Soundgarden are WAY better, though. They're a supergroup, and for that, they're in the upper-tier.

[criterionmaster]

Rage Against the Machine = My Favorite Band EVER!

I love them more than any band. I can't even explain how much I love them. What is all your favorite Rage songs?!

[PTAhole]

Everything off of their self-titled, and most of Battle for Los Angelas.

[captainofbeef]

O God. Killing in the Name obviously. Bulls on Parade, Testify, Sleep Now in the Fire and Bullet in the Head.

[blackmoses]

criterionmaster said:

Rage Against the Machine = My Favorite Band EVER!

I told you they were the best and you said Korn was better. What happened?

[captainofbeef]

O God. Korn better than Rage? Get your head straight Dan.

[blackmoses]

Yes Dan get your head straight!

[captainofbeef]

www.roadrun.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=65693

RATM is getting back together for one show at Coachella. I will kill anyone in order to get tickets.

[criterionmaster]

HOLY FUCK! I seriously screamed "fuck!" outloud when I read that. I must go, there is no way I can miss this.

[blackmoses]

I am going. Fact.

[captainofbeef]

I have a very small chance of going, since I already have other concert plans (DMB, Rush), but if I could get tickets, I would drive out there since I'm getting my license in May.

[captainofbeef]

Well, since the festival is in April and the tickets go on sale this weekend, there is no way I could go. Didn't your brother go to this last year Andrew?

[misterbalco]

Is this a yearly thing? If so, Im down for next year.

[captainofbeef]

Coachella is a yearly thing, RATM reunion is only a one time thing.

[Cacodyl]

I just came onto dis forum awhile ago, cant remember why. I noticed that there's this page devoted to RATM, and because only last nite i made a knife with the RATM logo from their eponymous debut i thought, what the hell, maybe ill mention it here. And reading down more recent posts made me VERY ANGRY. WTF?! RATM do not even compare to KoRn! Yes RATM are a very socially active band (much as SOAD, another superior band, followed them in that fashion), but the repetitive lyrics and pretentious bass just irritate me. Here's just a few reasons why KoRn are better than RATM:

1. Jonathan Davis, our Lord and Master and possibly the sexiest man alive (after Ville Valo)
2. The tremendous singing talent of no. 1, varying from sweet a cappello melodies to thunderously crude cookie monster, to whining nerdish imitations to rap-esque middle register taunts
3. The sheer emotional thrust of their studio albums (emotion being one thing that cannot be logically associated with RATM)
4. The properly-utilised bass
5. The string of brilliant riffs
6. The varying between more traditional nu/thrash metal tracks (along the veins of "Divine" and "Ball Tongue) with the occasionally sinister, slightly Gothic ones (Dead Bodies Everywhere, Shoots And Ladders) to the ones again showcasing the beautifully vivid violent emotion of Jonathan's songwriting (Daddy, Good God)
7. The better lyrics
8. The lack of pretentious quoting from 1984 in applicable contexts (yes, im slagging off 1 flaw in the otherwise perfect "Testify". Fucking brilliant)

I hope you all consider these points before uttering sighs of disgust and moving on, though I must admit it does seem shockingly unlikely that any of you will get this far down the post before getting really irritated.

[captainofbeef]

HAHAHA, you really are full of yourself aren't you? Comparing these two bands is irrelevant. One, Johnathan Davis is NOT a talented singer. Seriously, he might be able to sing, but from what I have heard (which is quite a fair amount) he can rap and cookie monster. That's it. There are thousands of people in metal who are discovered and not discovered who blow Davis out of the water when it comes to vocal ability.

RATM and KoRn are just as emotional as one another, comparing their ability and emotion is like comparing God with Jesus. It can't be done. Calling KoRn better musicians than RATM is just FUCKING RIDICULOUS. Has Head or Munky done ANYTHING nearly as innovative as Morello, and one of those incompetent guitar players has left the band. Where are the solos by the way???

Now, here is the main problem with you argument. KoRn's lyrics blow. Seriously, look at the lyrics of a song like Ball Tongue and tell me it compares to ANYTHING that De la Rocha has written. All KoRn's music sounds the same, skull numbing, ear bleeding nu-metal. They never sound different.

You are obviously biased, you think KoRn is the best band of all time, which is your opinion. But you are wrong, if you got out of your fan obsession and listened to KoRn's music with a clear head and then RATM's music, you would realize how much more musically and lyrically complicated RATM is than KoRn.

[ie]

The true order of things are like this:

RATM were worth remembering.
SOAD started out well, but...
Korn are okay...


After all, I still have a great respect for the things Morello has been able to coax out of his guitar. Even if you disregard the tricks he uses, he can still play a great acoustic guitar, so I have a bit of a bias there.

As for the rest of the band, RATM weren't 1984 fanboys, because otherwise la Rocha would have been rapping in newspeak, and that wouldn't have been a very good thing.


SOAD started out well with their debut, did one better with Toxicity, but kind of halfassed it with Steal This Album, which is more than understandable considering the reasons that album was released. Then they realized that they were just printing money, and so they halfassed not one, but two albums! To be honest, I haven't heard the latter, but to me, the only thing worth noting (as in, besides standard affair songs) was the guitar solo bit in Revenga, from 2:27 to around 2:58 on this song with unrelated video.

I predict SOAD will not receive even half of the same formal "FUCK YES!" that could be heard in outer space that happened when RATM announced their reunion. Simply put, life's gone on without the SOAP. *shrug*


Korn has a few interesting songs to their credit, I'll give them that, but that's about it.

[Cacodyl]

I'm going to reply to some of the points made here:

1. captainofbeef, precisely what led you to believe I was "full of myself"?

2. Virtually every KoRn song made shows Davis varying between at least two vocal styles

3. Just as emotional as each other? To RATM's credit they show more political consciousness than KoRn which can give them an excuse for demonstrating little emotion, but HONESTLY. Just listen to The Battle Of Los Angeles and you'll realize they are the de Palma of metal: fantastic technical ability, but no real energy in what they are doing (in fact energy isn't a perfect word for it but im too dopey to think of an appropriate one at the moment)

4. What the hell is the point in comparing God with Jesus in the first place? I thought this thread was set up to discuss a) real people b) not use frightening analogies over which virtually the entire two thousand years of theological study is based on

5. Answer to the solos? Well I can't think of any off the top of my head because I've been listening to a lot of HIM recently but I'll let you know some good ones in a bit.

6. A band member leaving the band after eight albums is better than a band splitting up after four.

7. Answer to your argument about the lyrics: I will admit this is one place where it would appear RATM do win. However, I was always thought that the components of all forms of art are 1) what is being said 2) how it is being expressed. de la Rocha can write intriguing and often quite intelligent lyrics (though, to compare Sleep Now In The Fire as one example, they can sometimes be quite repetitive), but maintains a full emotional detachment from what he is actually singing. Davis on the other hand puts every gram of himself into his singing and shows more variety as well as more raw emotion, which makes up for the occasionally weak lyrics.

8. Are you telling me you genuinely have not the least bit of bias in favour of RATM? And no i just listened to KoRn initially with an open mind, thought it was good and listened to RATM with something slightly more positive than an open mind after receiving dozens of recommendations that they were fantastic. Though I was not sorely mistaken, I still think I made an accurate choice about which was better.

9. Since when is complexity a criterion (pardon the pun) for quality? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is considered a work of genius largely because of its sheer simplicity; the only flaw in The Big Sleep by many critics is seen to be its sheerly absurd amount of twists and turns in the plot.

[Cacodyl]

A reply to ie's post earlier:

1. I never said Morello wasn't a good guitarist. On the contrary I think he's the main thing that held the band together for so long. Though I haven't heard any of his acoustic stuff

2. That's precisely the point I'm making. A proper 1984 fanboy would have realized that the context in which 1984 was quoted (in Testify) was completely inappropriate and thus would have picked something else for that bridge. They also would have had the cop to realize that over-sensationalizing a (moronically paraphrased) quote from a brilliant work of literature into a song in which the lyrics are largely supplementary, is desecratory to Orwell's memory and his novel.

3. I haven't heard Steal This Album though in fairness I have not heard any glowingly positive reviews about it. And there is PLENTY to say about Mesmerize! The greater use of Serj's voice, the genius political commentary in extending a metaphor about Iraq, and that seriously lighters-in-the-air closer, Lost In Hollywood.

4. "I predict SOAD will not receive even half of the same formal "FUCK YES!" that could be heard in outer space that happened when RATM announced their reunion." And this proves WHAT exactly? The already given fact that RATM have a bigger fanbase than SOAD or KoRn, predetermined by the fact that threads like this one even EXIST. It appears I have been misled to believe that this thread was based around the idea of musical quality as opposed to mere petty popularity contests.

5. Well at least you gave them that.

[captainofbeef]

Cacodyl said:

I'm going to reply to some of the points made here:

1. captainofbeef, precisely what led you to believe I was "full of myself"?

2. Virtually every KoRn song made shows Davis varying between at least two vocal styles

3. Just as emotional as each other? To RATM's credit they show more political consciousness than KoRn which can give them an excuse for demonstrating little emotion, but HONESTLY. Just listen to The Battle Of Los Angeles and you'll realize they are the de Palma of metal: fantastic technical ability, but no real energy in what they are doing (in fact energy isn't a perfect word for it but im too dopey to think of an appropriate one at the moment)

4. What the hell is the point in comparing God with Jesus in the first place? I thought this thread was set up to discuss a) real people b) not use frightening analogies over which virtually the entire two thousand years of theological study is based on

5. Answer to the solos? Well I can't think of any off the top of my head because I've been listening to a lot of HIM recently but I'll let you know some good ones in a bit.

6. A band member leaving the band after eight albums is better than a band splitting up after four.

7. Answer to your argument about the lyrics: I will admit this is one place where it would appear RATM do win. However, I was always thought that the components of all forms of art are 1) what is being said 2) how it is being expressed. de la Rocha can write intriguing and often quite intelligent lyrics (though, to compare Sleep Now In The Fire as one example, they can sometimes be quite repetitive), but maintains a full emotional detachment from what he is actually singing. Davis on the other hand puts every gram of himself into his singing and shows more variety as well as more raw emotion, which makes up for the occasionally weak lyrics.

8. Are you telling me you genuinely have not the least bit of bias in favour of RATM? And no i just listened to KoRn initially with an open mind, thought it was good and listened to RATM with something slightly more positive than an open mind after receiving dozens of recommendations that they were fantastic. Though I was not sorely mistaken, I still think I made an accurate choice about which was better.

9. Since when is complexity a criterion (pardon the pun) for quality? Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik is considered a work of genius largely because of its sheer simplicity; the only flaw in The Big Sleep by many critics is seen to be its sheerly absurd amount of twists and turns in the plot.

Well, one because you are attacking my post as a GUEST on this forum. You made your statement like it was THE decree on modern metal. Which of course it is not. If you had any balls, you would join this forum and have an intelligible discussion instead of calling saying that your opinion is factual or the only right one.

Davis is not a good singer. He may use more than one vocal style, but none of them show true tone or range as a pure vocalist. Cookie monster vocals suck and rap was meant for beats not real music.

I have listened to each of RATM's records and a few KoRn records, I feel the intensity is nearly the same. And in a live format, RATM and KoRn also have similar intensity levels.

Taking my absurd analogy out of context is your main problem here. I was just saying that both bands have an amazing amount of energy and that comparing their nearly equal levels is like comparing one giant to another.

Solos are part of music, and part of metal since the beginning. Hence one of the reasons why KoRn is referred to as nu-metal and RATM is not in most circles.

The band is reuniting, haven't you heard?? And since when did they split up, the word hiatus was used if you will recall correctly.

Davis may be intense, but intensity rarely makes up for bad lyrics. He could be screaming Jingle Bells for all I care, Davis can't write a good song.

I actually am very biased on this matter as well. I hate KoRn. I hate their music, the trends they started, every one of their records, and especially Mr. Davis. Head and Munky are below average guitarists. They may be able to write riffs, but almost any guitarist can do that. Until one of them proves their ability by delivering a decent solo on a record, I have no respect for them as guitarists.

You are right in this aspect, not all music must be complex. Especially in the case of metal. But brutal simplicity, like in the case of a band like KoRn, eventually becomes repetitive and just flat out boring. RATM has a shape shifting like quality to their music that KoRn can never coax out of their members. They are the superior band, not only for their sheer musical ability, but also for the effect that they have had on the music and world community.

[Cacodyl]

1. Now you're really grabbing at straws. So what if I'm a guest? Does that in anyway way affect the validity of my points?

2. The policy in all forms of music should be towards constant innovation, something that neither KoRn nor RATM have been at the forefront of, but still KoRn more. Part of the brilliance of KoRn is that they had the nerve to bring in this big range of vocal styles in 1994 when cookie monster was universally looked down on and rap was rap. We should embrace new styles unless they are really really rubbish, that should be a general policy in music.

3. Ok well granted I haven't seen the live shows of either, and if I say KoRn have a greater level of intensity this debate will be turned into petty "yes-it-is" "no-it-isn't" squabbles.

4. Yes, but the key issue is not simply the size of the giant. So RATM and KoRn are both metal heavyweights - isn't that essentially a given by this stage? We have to find some way to differentiate between these giants now.

5. If you something is "part" of metal, then by that logic any brand of music must subscribe to each individual characteristic of that music in order to be considered part of that genre. Just as an example, AFI are (or were) considered a punk band, even though they did not feature many anarchic or anti-establishment lyrics in their songs. Innovation is the key.

6. I only got into RATM well after they broke up, so I wouldn't really know. Though after recently investigating it a little further, some members of the band or their agents or whatever (the article wasn't too clear) said that the April concert will probably be a one-off and then the world will return to the calm normality of Audioslave.

7. That's kind of the point, it does in KoRn's case which is one of the reasons they stand out from lots of other nu metal bands out there. I mean none of us is about to say Fred Durst's vocal intensity make up for the rubbish lyrics, or vice versa.

8. For feck's sake, and you only yesterday giving out to me for allegedly "biased" discussion of these bands! Honestly if you are aware of your own faults and how these faults are going to become visible in any kind of serious debate, don't accuse someone else of having them (especially when they DON'T suffer from those faults, as I have already explained).

9. I will admit that RATM have had a huge impact on metal music and on fans of it around the world, in particular because of Morello. But that's getting back to a central topic in all form of artistic discussion - popularity versus quality. Of COURSE RATM are more popular than KoRn, but that shouldn't be used as evidence in a court of aesthetic quality. As the issue by this stage is largely unarguable, I will simply make the point that KoRn with one album defined an entire sub-genre of metal music, something which RATM can not honestly claim to accomplishing. If anything I believe RATM may have been indirectly inspired by KoRn with the blend of rap and metal which is so evident in both bands.

Thank you for your time.

[sacrilegend]

andruini said:

but omg, is the lineup orgasmic or WHAT!?

bjork
interpol
arctic monkeys
sonic youth
dj shadow
peeping tom
julieta venegas
gogol bordello
rhcp
arcade fire
decemberists
the rapture
lcd soundsystem
!!!
blonde redhead
hot chip
justice
manu chao
air
the roots
damien rice
explosions in the sky
soulwax
ratatat!!
junior boys

just to name a few interesting ones.

I MUST GO.

Multiply orgasmic!

Wowowowow lucky people...