| Prophets of Rage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 15, 2017 (2017-09-15) | |||
| Recorded | 2016–2017 | |||
| Studio | Henson Recording Studios, Los Angeles, California | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 39:40 | |||
| Label | Fantasy | |||
| Producer | Brendan O'Brien | |||
| Prophets of Rage chronology | ||||
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Prophets of Rage is the solestudio album by Americanrap rocksupergroupProphets of Rage, consisting of three members ofRage Against the Machine andAudioslave (bassist and backing vocalistTim Commerford, guitaristTom Morello, and drummerBrad Wilk),Public Enemy'sDJ Lord and rapperChuck D, andCypress Hill rapperB-Real. The group formed in 2016 with a mission to "confront the injustices and be the soundtrack of resistance," and the primary message ofProphets of Rage is only the people themselves can solve the world's problems.
Released on September 15, 2017, byFantasy Records,[4][5]Prophets of Rage garnered very dividedreviews, with favorable reviews praising the chemistry between the members of the supergroup and the harshness of the LP and critics that disliked the album panning the vague, one-dimensional lyrics. Commercially, however, the album debuted at number 16 on the AmericanBillboard200 chart, selling more than 21,000 copies in the United States in its first week of release, and also landed in the top 20 of charts of several European countries.
On April 12, 2016,CNN broadcast a story with the headline "Trump Rages Against the GOP Machine."[6] Tom Morello said in aChannel 4 interview, "We said, "you may not have that territory that belongs to us.""[7] This influenced him to form a supergroup withRage Against the Machine membersBrad Wilk andTim Commerford,Public Enemy'sChuck D andDJ Lord, andCypress Hill'sB-Real to form the supergroup Prophets of Rage less than two months later.[8] They formed the band to "confront the injustices and be the soundtrack of resistance."[7]
In a June 2016 interview, Chuck D said that he was skeptical Prophets of Rage was going to make a full-length album: "I see us making no more than two or three songs at best that round us out because it has to come together organically and naturally."[9] However, the group then went into a rehearsal area to start conceiving songs, using the "momentum" from their live performances, and "as we were doing that the creative flow was great, because everyone had great ideas and everyone was open to each others’ ideas," B-Real explained.[10] The band was able to write ten songs in two weeks,[11] and most of the demos were finished in only around three months.[10]
The group then immediately got into the studio with producer and regular Rage Against the Machine collaboratorBrendan O'Brien to record all of the songs.[10] As B-Real explained, "All of us have tremendous respect for Brendan O’Brien, we thought we definitely had something. He is a guy who is honest, brutally honest if you will, and he would have told us if we were standing on shit."[10] All of the songs were recorded in more than a month[12] and placed together on an album titledProphets of Rage.[10]
"We’re not a supergroup. We’re an elite task force of revolutionary musicians determined to confront this mountain of election year bullshit, and confront it head-on with the Marshall stacks blazing."
As B-Real describedProphets of Rage:
What we tried to do was to make some rockin’ music, more than anything, and make our messages on it; things that are happening right now, relevant things that people are neglecting to talk about in their music – which is fine, everybody has their lane, and what they want to do, but we chose to be the voice of the people.[13]
Prophets of Rage is the most equivalent to the works of Rage Against The Machine for its use of harsh guitar riffs andsloganeering,[14] though it also contains the samefunk rock rhythms as the works of Cypress Hill and Public Enemy.[2] Andy Cush, a critic forSpin, wrote that most of the album follows exactly the same structure: "a hulking riff to start; a lightly funky rapped verse; a shout-along chorus, maybe with the intro riff again, maybe a slightly different one."[15]
The main message of the group's music is that it's up to the people to fix the world's problems.[16] On the album, it's most shown in the song "Unfuck The World," a statement to many individuals that "if you want to see this change, you got to get up and orchestrate that happening."[11] As Chuck D sings on the track through amegaphone filter, "No hatred / Fuck racists / Blank faces / Time’s changin' / One nation / Unification / The vibration / Unfuck the world!"[2] "Hail to the Chief" is about howDonald Trump's silly antics are used as distractions to keep people's focus away fromMike Pence's "deathly" plans.[17] "Legalize Me" is about the legalization of marijuana, something B-Real usually advocated for.[16]
On May 8, 2017, Prophets of Rage premiered "Unfuck the World" while performing in Chile.[18] The track and its officialmusic video were released on June 1, 2017.[12] The video was directed byMichael Moore, who also directed the video for the 2000 Rage Against the Machine single "Sleep Now in the Fire,"[8] and is a collage of live performances of the group,Pepsi's "Live for Now" advertisement, and news footage ofDonald Trump, police brutality, factory farming, nuclear bombs, poor neighborhoods, and celebrities.[12] "Living On The 110" was issued as the album's second single on July 12, 2017[19] and was performed by the band onThe Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on September 12, 2017.[20] The song's video, released on July 21, 2017, depicts Prophets of Rage playing the song while statistics about poverty and wealth inequality in the United States occasionally appear.[21][22] Near the video's end, it includes a sample ofNelson Mandela saying, "Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right. The right to dignity and a decent life. While poverty exists, there is no true freedom."[21]
Prophets of Rage's third single, "Radical Eyes," was released on August 7, 2017,[23] its video, a collection of footage of protests of events such as the 1960s civil rights movement and theUnite the Right rally in Charlottesville.[24] On September 20, 2017, the music video for "Hail to the Chief" was released.[25] Directed and produced by David C. Snyder and Carl Ryder,[26] it depicts the White House as aTrump Tower with African-Americans hanging in the front lawn and Trump's head imposed onto a cowboy shootingHillary Clinton[25] and members of theNazi party doing the salute.[25][27] Mike Pence is in the visuals praising Trump's action, putting him "as the actual person controlling the nation while constantly lurking in the background," wrote Eddie Fu.[25] "Strength in Numbers" was issued on September 5, 2017,[28] its music video on October 16.[29] The videos samples footage about and related toNFL players protesting by kneeling during the National Anthem.[29] Prophets of Rage livestreamed the track "Legalize Me" on September 7, 2017.[30] On November 2, 2017, the group wrote a post onFacebook asking fans to submit pictures and videos of themselves holding a sign saying "Legalize Me" while lip-syncing to the song's chorus for a music video of "Legalize Me."[31] However, a music video for the song was never released.
Released worldwide on September 15 byFantasy Records,Prophets of Rage debuted at number 16 on the United StatesBillboard200 chart, selling over 21,000 copies in the nation in its first week.[32] The album also peaked in the top-twenty of several European and Oceanic nations such as the United Kingdom (#6), France (#8), Germany (#14), New Zealand (#4), and Australia (#11).[32]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AnyDecentMusic? | 5.3/10[33] |
| Metacritic | 54/100[34] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| The A.V. Club | D[14] |
| Classic Rock |    [35] |
| Consequence of Sound | C−[36] |
| Exclaim! | 6/10[37] |
| The Guardian | [1] |
| Mojo | [34] |
| NME | [38] |
| Pitchfork | 4.6/10[39] |
| Q | [34] |
| Rolling Stone | [40] |
Prophets of Rage was met with "mixed or average" reviews from critics. AtMetacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received anaverage score of 54 based on 19 reviews.[34] Its detractors mainly criticized the record's non-specific, unmoving one-dimensional political messages and bland musical style.[1][2][14][15][36][39] Some reviewers even criticized the unoriginal statements of the album's promotional material, including its music videos, cover art, and merchandise.[39][41][36] Some critics claimed the album had more of a focus on nostalgia for the groups the members derived from than its political themes.[36][42] Clayton Purdom ofThe A.V. Club calledProphets of Rage "trainwreck bad—latter-day Limp Bizkit bad, "Magnets, how do they work" bad."[14] Cush wrote that most of the album follows exactly the same structure but got "even worse" in the few moments where it goes out of that formula.[15]Exclaim! found the lyrics to be all over the place from "walk[ing] a line between accessibility and on-the-nose-ness" to "ruinously bad."[37]
Chuck D's performance was another common criticism,[39][14][41] some opining he was more suited to 1990s hip-hop instrumentals than Rage Against the Machine's style of rock that's persistent onProphets of Rage.[41][14] Punknews.org's Ricky Frankel panned the use ofauto-tune processing on B-Real's voice,[43] andPitchfork's Evan Rytlewski wrote that "he stick-and-moves with all the dexterity of theKool-Aid Man."[39] However, Rytlewski found the album to be better than the group's EPThe Party's Over (2016), "which introduced a band seemingly less interested in justice than a quick buck. [OnProphets of Rage], there’s no questioning that their hearts are in it."[39]
Some ofProphets of Rage's favorable reviews mainly enjoyed the album's furious tone,[38][44][45] Jordan Bassett ofNME writing, "This is not a subtle record, but these are not subtle times. So grab a Marshall stack, put it through a fascist’s window and let’s start the revolution. Now."[38] Glenn Gamboa ofNewsday highlighted how "each song has multiple layers that all make the song stronger, like fingers closing into a raised fist."[46] Some writers praised the chemistry between the members of the band, especially the mixture of Chuck D's harsh baritone rapping and B-Real's bright snarly voice.[35][46][47] However, Guy Oddy ofThe Arts Desk was disappointed with the lack of prominence of DJ Lord on the LP.[45]
| Publication | Accolade | Rank |
|---|---|---|
| Classic Rock | The 50 Best Albums of 2017 | 19[48] |
| The Digital Fix | The Music Fix Albums of 2017 | —[49] |
| Fopp | The Best in 2017 | 56[50] |
| Kerrang! | Albums Of 2017 | 24[51] |
All tracks are written by Tom Morello, Tim Commerford, Brad Wilk, Carlton Ridenhour, Louis Freese.
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Radical Eyes" | 3:22 |
| 2. | "Unfuck the World" | 4:10 |
| 3. | "Legalize Me" | 3:35 |
| 4. | "Living on the 110" | 3:48 |
| 5. | "The Counteroffensive" | 0:37 |
| 6. | "Hail to the Chief" | 4:08 |
| 7. | "Take Me Higher" | 3:47 |
| 8. | "Strength in Numbers" | 3:08 |
| 9. | "Fired a Shot" | 3:28 |
| 10. | "Who Owns Who" | 3:28 |
| 11. | "Hands Up" | 2:39 |
| 12. | "Smashit" | 3:25 |
| Total length: | 42:12 | |
Prophets of Rage
Additional personnel
| Chart (2017) | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian Albums (ARIA)[52] | 11 |
| Austrian Albums (Ö3 Austria)[53] | 12 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Flanders)[54] | 13 |
| Belgian Albums (Ultratop Wallonia)[55] | 15 |
| Canadian Albums (Billboard)[56] | 17 |
| Czech Albums (ČNS IFPI)[57] | 58 |
| Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)[58] | 36 |
| French Albums (SNEP)[59] | 16 |
| German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)[60] | 14 |
| Irish Albums (IRMA)[61] | 16 |
| Italian Albums (FIMI)[62] | 96 |
| New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)[63] | 4 |
| Polish Albums (ZPAV)[64] | 24 |
| Scottish Albums (OCC)[65] | 5 |
| Spanish Albums (PROMUSICAE)[66] | 30 |
| Swiss Albums (Schweizer Hitparade)[67] | 3 |
| UK Albums (OCC)[68] | 6 |
| UK Rock & Metal Albums (OCC)[69] | 2 |
| USBillboard 200[70] | 16 |
| USTop Alternative Albums (Billboard)[71] | 4 |
| USTop Rock Albums (Billboard)[72] | 4 |
