“Bombtrack” by Rage Against the Machine

"Bombtrack" is the first thing you hear on Rage Against the Machine's self-titled 1992 debut, and it lets you know right away that this band isn't here to make friends. Tim Commerford came up with the riffs, Tom Morello turns them into a coiled, grinding threat, Brad Wilk hits like a battering ram, and Zack de la Rocha spits out his own lyrics about social inequality with the landlords squarely in his sights. Garth Richardson produced with the band, and Andy Wallace mixed.

It later became their third single, and its best showing came in the Netherlands, where it reached number eight. The sleeve used Alberto Korda's famous portrait of Che Guevara, and the video, which put the band inside a cage, voiced support for Sendero Luminoso, the Peruvian Maoist group, and its leader Abimael Guzmán, echoing the way Guzmán was shown to the press caged after the military captured him.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.