Guerrilla Radio

"Guerrilla Radio" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine and the lead single from their 1999 album ''The Battle of Los Angeles''. It became the band's only Billboard Hot 100 song, charting at #69. The band won the Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance for this song.

History

"Guerrilla Radio" was performed live on the ''Late Show with David Letterman'' in 1999. The band played additional music to the in-person audience through the commercial break. When the broadcast returned, Letterman joked, "I hope age Against the Machine arenot neglecting their school work." The performance was controversial due to Zack de la Rocha giving the middle finger on live TV and wearing a "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal" T-shirt.

On January 28, 2000, documentary film maker Michael Moore convinced campaigning politician Alan Keyes to mosh in a truck with young teenagers listening to "Guerrilla Radio". Keyes, who was campaigning for the Republican nomination at the Iowa caucuses, agreed to join in the mosh for the endorsement of Moore's satirical television show, ''The Awful Truth''.

The song was covered by lounge/comedy group Richard Cheese and Lounge Against the Machine, whose band name also spoofs Rage. In April 2007, Alanis Morissette covered it live.

In July 2007, the song's video for "Guerrilla Radio" was ranked #45 on MuchMusic's 50 Most Controversial Videos for extreme amounts of profanity. However, it appeared in RTPNadverts in the summer of 2006, as an instrumental song.

This song is featured on the album '' Body of War: Songs that Inspired an Iraq War Veteran''.

"Guerrilla Radio" made its live debut on September 11, 1999, at the Oxford Zodiac in England.

The song is one of 31 music files in the '' Sony BMG v. Tenenbaum'' case, which resulted in finding the individual file-sharer liable for copyright infringement in July 2009, demanding an award of $22,500 a song.

In December 2009, Guerrilla Radio was placed #54 on Channel V's Top 1000 Noughties Music Videos of the decade, Countdown.

"Guerrilla Radio" is played at Los Angeles FC home matches when the team scores a goal. It was also on the soundtrack and opening sequence for the video game ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2'', and returned to the soundtrack when the re-mastered ''Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2'' was released in 2020. In Japan, Fuji Television used it as the theme song for its broadcasts of Pride Fighting Championships.

Music video

The music video was shot by production company Squeak Pictures in Los Angeles in October 1999 and directed by Honey, i.e., the husband-and-wife directorial team of Laura Kelly and Nicholas Brooks.

The music video opens with people sitting and working at individual sewing stations on top of platforms in an all white room as the jazz song "Broken in Two" plays. After a moment, a scratching record interrupts the music and the phrase "everybody in denial" flashes on screen. Rage Against the Machine replaces the workers in the room, calmly playing their instruments. As the music video progresses, the band plays their music with more typical physicality and excited energy. During the bridge, the figure of a well-dressed man oversees the workers. The camera zooms in on the face of his wrist watch where the numbers crossfade into a top-down view of the workers at their stations and a little girl standing in the center. The camera tilts down to the girl where she is then grabbed and dragged away by the man.

Interspersed in the music video is the story of a young couple spending the day together. In the first main scene, they visit a clothing store where the woman tries on various outfits. After deciding on a sporty outfit, the woman pays with a credit card and then she morphs into a plastic-y, mannequin-like figure. Later in another scene (now both having morphed), the couple plays racquetball. They have a difficult time controlling their movements, inadvertently bumping into each other. As their match progresses, the woman knocks the man's head off and then her body completely shatters as it collapses.

The music video, which touches upon consumer culture and the exploitation of garment workers, parodies the popular late '90s Gap commercials directed by Pedro Romhanyi. These ads featured attractive young people wearing Gap clothing singing songs against a white backdrop. The phrase "everybody in denial" is a play on "everybody in khaki", which was a Gap TV ad campaign at the time. The workers featured in the video were union members of the United States and Canada trade union for needletraders, industrial, and textile employees UNITE (now UNITE HERE) as themselves.

Track listing

;CD single
#"Guerrilla Radio"
#"Without a Face (Live Version)"

;UK limited edition maxi single, part one
#"Guerrilla Radio"
#" No Shelter"
#"The Ghost of Tom Joad"

;UK limited edition maxi single, part two
#"Guerrilla Radio" (Radio Edit)
#"Fuck tha Police" (Live) (N.W.A cover)
#"Freedom" (Live)

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

External links

Axis of Justice
Tom Morello and Serj Tankian's Activist Website " Axis Of Justice"

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1999 singles
Rage Against the Machine songs
Protest songs
Song recordings produced by Brendan O'Brien (record producer)
Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance
1998 songs
Songs written by Tom Morello
Songs written by Brad Wilk
Songs written by Tim Commerford
Songs written by Zack de la Rocha
Songs against capitalism
Epic Records singles