洛杉矶之战 (1999)

The Battle of Los Angeles is the third studio album by the American rock band Rage Against the Machine, released by Epic Records on November 2, 1999. At the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Best Rock Album, and the song "Guerrilla Radio" won the award for Best Hard Rock Performance. In their year-end lists, Time and Rolling Stone magazines both named the album the best of 1999.

The album has been certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, indicating sales of at least two million units. It would be the last full-length studio album of original material released by the band before their first breakup in 2000 (their next album consisted entirely of covers and was released after the breakup).

Music and concept

Musically, The Battle of Los Angeles has been described as rap metal, funk metal, and rap rock. "Voice of the Voiceless", a song referring to American political activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, references a letter written by Mao Zedong, called "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire".

The album's cover art was an original piece spraypainted by Joey Krebs (also known as "The Street Phantom", "The Phantom Street Artist", or Joel Jaramillo), a well-known Los Angeles graffiti artist who has exhibited at numerous galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, and throughout the United States. Phantom's graffiti work regularly uses an outline profile of a human with text overlaid.

Release and promotion

The Battle of Los Angeles debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart, selling around 420,000 copies in its first week and keeping Mariah Carey's highly anticipated new album Rainbow from reaching the top of the chart. It was nominated for Best Rock Album at the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards.

The music videos made for "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Testify" were directed by documentarian Michael Moore, who appears in both videos.

Critical reception

In their year-end lists, Time and Rolling Stone magazines both named The Battle of Los Angeles the best album of 1999. Retrospectively, it was ranked No. 426 on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2005, the album was listed at No. 53 on Spin's list of the 100 greatest albums from 1985–2005, as well as No. 369 on Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time. In 2021, Metal Hammer magazine named it one of the 20 best metal albums of 1999.

Awards

1999: No. 1 Time Magazine Critic Pick (The Best Music of 1999)

1999: No. 1 Rolling Stone Critic Pick (Best Album of 1999)

Appearances in other media

"Maria" was covered by Canadian-American singer Grandson in 2019.