10 Bands That Never Topped Their 1st Album

10. Rage Against The Machine

The first Rage Against The Machine album was the audio equivalent of tossing a hand grenade into some bland corporate stakeholders meeting. Their definitive rap-metal statement sent many suited slugs scrambling to figure out how to cash in on something that called for their demise.

Whether you subscribe to the band's humourless political views or not, it's almost impossible not to subscribe to the muscular, funked-up riffing Tom Morello uses to back up vocalist Zack de la Rocha's angry slogans. For ten tightly constructed songs, the band never relents in bludgeoning the listener with irresistible fury.

Producer Garth Richardson pulled a smart move placing the microphones in the right places and getting out the way as the band charged through what sounds like a pissed off basement brawl with minimal overdubs and studio trickery. The band's playing is precise and militant, but the fun is in their pure conviction.

The Los Angeles band's album might have spawned a misguided army of awful imitators, but it endures as a brilliant snapshot of a city (and world) on a knife-edge in 1992.

It took them four years to follow it up with Evil Empire in 1996, but the follow-up's more cerebral approach took some of the bounce out the music. It is as strong as the debut in many ways, but the message became a bit wordier and underlined how protest posters are more fun than actually getting that four-year political science degree.