10 Greatest Supergroups In Rock History
5. Audioslave
The fact that Rage Against the Machine broke up at the start of the '00s really stings that much more in retrospect. Despite disagreeing on different matters of their musical direction, it seems all too strange that these militant rap rock titans ended up sitting out the entire '00s just as 9/11 and the Bush Administration was about to come into office. While Zack de la Rocha remained in exile for the foreseeable future, Tom Morello and co. found their calling with an entirely different musical legend.
Make no mistake, Audioslave is not the same beast as Rage Against the Machine, with Chris Cornell's wail being pretty much the polar opposite of de la Rocha's rap rock spoken word pieces. What we have here though is some of the best classic rock sounding tunes of the '00s, with Cornell not losing an iota of strength in his original shouty delivery. That being said, Rage's trademark weirdness is still on display, as Morello's guitar work glitches out whenever it gets the chance on songs like Revelations and the wah soaked solo of Like a Stone.
That's not to discount the other members of Rage either, as Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk scale things back to serve the song rather than blow your mind with one funky break after another. Despite a lot of bands doing the retro throwback thing around this time, this is the one example of being rock while still sounding fresh.