Rage Against The Machine: Renegades

Rage Against The Machine inspires both praise and criticism in excessive measure: The importance of its albums, particularly 1999's The Battle Of Los Angeles, tends to be overstated, but the group's critics tend to hold it to unfair political standards. There's nothing wrong, for example, with its decision to release music through a major label, and you can't blame it for its role in inspiring a far less enlightened legion of rap-metal imitators. Neither a savior nor a scapegoat, Rage Against The Machine is instead a fascinating, flawed bundle of contradictions and conflicts, recently enduring controversy (it was forced to make amends after managers had its fans thrown off Napster) and the departure of vocalist Zack de la Rocha. How the group will survive the shake-up—Tom Morello is an inventive guitarist, but even Eddie Van Halen knows that only takes you so far—remains to be seen. But in the meantime, Rage has released Renegades, a change-of-pace collection of hip-hop, rock, and punk covers with powerhouse moments sprinkled throughout. By definition, it's not essential: Many of the originals (Minor Threat's "In My Eyes," MC5's "Kick Out The Jams," Dylan's "Maggie's Farm," and so on) were for all intents and purposes perfect, making Rage-style covers seem like little more than curiosities. It's at its best during its more radical reworkings, from hip-hop songs (Eric B & Rakim's "Microphone Fiend," Cypress Hill's "How I Could Just Kill A Man") to an uncharacteristically soft-spoken Devo cover ("Beautiful World"). In keeping with the group's tendency to simultaneously thrill and frustrate, check out the CD sleeve, which is padded with pages of agitprop and no information on the songs' origins. It's strange for a band as mindful of its roots as Rage Against The Machine to prioritize writing on money (rebellious!) over the discovery of albums by Afrika Bambaataa, The Stooges, and MC5.