Best National Loud Rock

Rage Against the Machine

Conscientious metallurgists Heavy metal has been going through a series of identity crises since 1991 -- hell, since Spinal Tap, really -- and this hasn't been such a bad thing. Metal's gotten to try on plenty of masks: postmodern junk-shop pastiche (White Zombie); dance party on the grave of post-industrialism (Ministry and Nine Inch Nails); performance art for recovering Catholics (Marilyn Manson); end-of-the-millennium vehicle for transcendent consciousness (Tool); and good ol' grassroots protest vehicle for America's children of moderate entitlement, i.e., suburban folk music (Rage Against the Machine). All these guises were assumed in response to a question about what heavy metal was supposed to be about, what you could use it for -- chicks and drugs were out, dealing with pain was in. But like exiles from the land of Oz -- or Ozzy -- heavy metal seemed to be looking less for a brain or a heart than for a conscience. And since this was such an intrinsically alien concept to metallurgists -- as well it should be, one might argue -- they decided to steal one from hip-hop. It's been going on since Aerosmith/Run DMC and Anthrax/Public Enemy, but never quite as explicitly as it's embodied by Rage Against the Machine. They solidified their base last year by touring with the Wu-Tang Clan and covering Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" along the way -- and sounding pretty much the way they've sounded since day one, which is a lot like Zeppelin. But in the end, what really matters is that Rage provide cultural authenticity to a white middle-class audience that feels at a loss to manufacture it on its own, a legitimacy that was apparently lacking in the Deftones or Coal Chamber or Marilyn Manson or any of the other bands who made more interesting music last year.

-- Carly Carioli