Album Information
The song "Calm Like a Bomb" is featured in the credits of The Matrix Reloaded. The videos to "Sleep Now in the Fire" and "Testify" were directed by documentarian Michael Moore. Both "Testify" and "Guerrilla Radio" are also featured in the video game Rock Band 2, being on-disc and downloadable, respectively.
The album debuted at #1 on Billboard's Top 200 selling 420,000 copies its first week. That week saw a busy CD release schedule. The album denied Mariah Carey's highly anticipated album the chance to open at #1. "Guerrilla Radio" was featured in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2, albeit heavily edited on the Nintendo 64 version, and it is also heavily edited on "Madden NFL 10". Both Time and Rolling Stone named it the Best Album of 1999. It was listed as #53 in SPIN Magazine's 100 Greatest Albums, 1985-2005.
The album cover art was an original artwork by the LA Street Phantom aka Joey Krebs aka Joel Jaramillo, a well-known Los Angeles artist who has exhibited at numerous galleries in Los Angeles, New York City and throughout the United States. Despite claims to the contrary, the image was not inspired by images from the 1992 street riots of LA or from images of Munich, but by the band's own music and words, and represents one in a series of images of the artist's work, which can also be seen on various street murals in Los Angeles.
The Battle of Los Angeles was heavily influenced by the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. "Testify", "Sleep Now in the Fire", "Voice of the Voiceless", among other songs, include direct quotes from the novel, and mention key Orwellian terms in the lyrics. "Voice of the Voiceless", a song referring to Mumia Abu Jamal, contains a quotation from the writings of Mao Zedong. Another Rage-Mumia-Mao connection can be seen in Mumia's paraphrased words from Mao's "power grows out of the barrel of a gun" when Mumia gave his court testimony: "It is America who has seized political power from the Indian race, not by God, not by Christianity, not by goodness, but by the barrel of a gun."
The album was named for the Battle of Los Angeles which took place on February 25, 1942.
Saul Williams sampled "Born of a Broken Man" for his song "Om Nia Merican", which appeared on his 2001 album Amethyst Rock Star.
In 2003, the album was ranked number 426 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | |
| Entertainment Weekly | A |
| NME | 7/10 |
| Robert Christgau | |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Spin | 10/10 |
| Vibe | favorable |
| Yahoo! Music | favorable |
Read more about this topic: The Battle Of Los Angeles (album)
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