Rage Against The Machine

Formed in 1991 in Los Angeles, Rage Against The Machine have been one of the more politically active left-wing music groups of the past 20 years. With the release of their self-titled debut in November 1992 following their signing to Epic Records, the group's politicial viewpoints were shown to a mainstream audience and the album itself received immense praise commercially and criticially, with audiophiles in particular praising the production values. Follow-up album Evil Empire in April 1996 wasn't as successful as their debut, but third album The Battle Of Los Angeles from November 1999 pinned the group as superstars, debuting at #1 on the US Billboard 200. The group collapsed from here, with their so-far final album of their first run, December 2000's covers release of Renegades being one of the group's lower points. With a change of political power in the USA since they had disbanded, the group reformed in 2007 and were the subject of the successful UK Christmas Number One campaign in 2009 in order to prevent 5 straight years of the UK Xmas #1 being the winner of The X-Factor; Killing In The Name beat the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry's cover of Miley Cyrus' The Climb by approximately 50,000 sales; a remarkable achievement for such an old track. Sleep Now In The Fire's video is below, with the downloads afterwards.