90's Region - Rage Against the Machine vs Soul Asylum

[IrishCanadian25]

1st Round 90's Region Match

Rage Against the Machine vs Soul Asylum

Please take into account the entire body of work of the artists, their mark on the music industry and/or society as a whole, their influence on other artists, lyrics, music, etc. If you have not already done so, please review the rules of the tournament and the Wrestlezone Forums. Have fun!​

 

[Bernkastel]

I only have one Soul Asylum song, and its off of the soundtrack from the move Twister (greatest movie ever made BTW). Now based on that one song RATM destroys Soul Asylum, no contest. But I have checked out some of Soul Asylum's other stuff and their not half, but Rage still has my vote. Battle for Los Angeles, as well as Evil Empire, and their Self Titled Album were all great.

 

[X]

I was never a very big Soul Asylum fan. Reminded me of that band Candlebox in that every song they did sounded like a commercialized attempt at grunge/alt-rock and was always far too polished.

Rage Against the Machine I used to love as a kid. But they're a bit overrated. They had a few good albums and probably about a dozen or so good songs, but their name doesn't pop into my head when I think "Best Rock Bands" or even "Best Rock Bands of the 90s".

I do love Tom Morello though. That guy is absolutely insane on the guitar, and is truly one of the best of his generation, and definately the best guitarist to still be getting mainstream radio exposure.

So, I went with RATM. They probably won't go too far in this thing I'd say though.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

Soul Asylum - another band I love that XFear calls "too polished." I guess "polished" is his indictment of "good music" that doesn't sound thrown together or disjointed. But Somebody to Shove was a cool, upbeat rock song. String of Pearls was an excellent album, and the title track a fun story that made little sense but created some fun images in your mind. Black Gold was a decent song, and I got REALLY sick of Runaway Train REALLY fast. I understand that a mess of lost kids were found thanks to that video, but it was too whiney for me.

I love Rage Against the Machine. They were an uber-political group of musical militants, and when I was in High School in the 90's, Evil Empire came out to the delight of many more politically in-tune kids. Bulls on Parade, People of the Sun, Bombtrack, Testify, Guerrilla Redio, Wake Up, Know Your Enemy, Freedom, Killing in the Name of...who says they can't go far in this tournament?

 

[X]

Soul Asylum - another band I love that XFear calls "too polished." I guess "polished" is his indictment of "good music" that doesn't sound thrown together or disjointed.

No not at all. Come on man I love the Beatles & Bob Dylan, shit I love prog-rock as well you can't call that music thrown together or disjointed.

By "too polished" what I'm getting at is that they don't sound geniune, at all. They sound like they heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit", said "Holy shit look at all that money that Nirvana is making!" and then decided to start playing "grunge" with little to no talent or emotion whatsoever. Soul Asylum is quite the ironic name given that these guys sound like they have no soul whatsoever on their albums. Soul Asylum sounds like it was made for one reason only: to make money. And music that is made for that reason is usually utter crap.

As always, thats just my opinion. But why would I want to listen to Soul Asylum, or any of the other second rate nu-grunge bands you've touted, when I could simply listen to an actual grunge band?

(Now awaiting IC25's angry response)

 

[Shocky]

Rage against the Machine is a perfect description of a band (headsinger at least) that begins to think he is more popular then what he actually was. Sure, they always were heavy and in your face, with political themes. After Evil Empire though, Zack de la Rocha used the band as his background to messages he was getting across. It got over political when sometimes you just want to shut up and rock. Not everything has to have a deep meaning. The message got lost with that fanbase. Rage rocked on the instruments, but the lyrics and all that shit ended up losing a bunch of fans. You can have too much of something, and Rage didn't know when to hold back on pushing that message.

However, Soul Asylum is incredibly mediocre. As much as Rage fell off the face of the earth after Evil Empire in my opinion, that is still enough to advance in this thing.

 

[IrishCanadian25]

No not at all. Come on man I love the Beatles & Bob Dylan, shit I love prog-rock as well you can't call that music thrown together or disjointed.

By "too polished" what I'm getting at is that they don't sound geniune, at all. They sound like they heard "Smells Like Teen Spirit", said "Holy shit look at all that money that Nirvana is making!" and then decided to start playing "grunge" with little to no talent or emotion whatsoever. Soul Asylum is quite the ironic name given that these guys sound like they have no soul whatsoever on their albums. Soul Asylum sounds like it was made for one reason only: to make money. And music that is made for that reason is usually utter crap.

As always, thats just my opinion. But why would I want to listen to Soul Asylum, or any of the other second rate nu-grunge bands you've touted, when I could simply listen to an actual grunge band?

(Now awaiting IC25's angry response)

No angry response - that was a very fair assessment of how you feel about Soul Asylum and bands of the like. But I don't think S.A. ever tried to be the angry, grungy gang like Nirvana was. I think Soul Asylum wanted more of a folk / alt sound, like on the songs String of Pearls and Black Gold - radio friendly of course - and then just rocked out a bit on "Somebody to Shove." I found them to be VERY soulful, without being angry, depressed, or depressing.

 

[justinsayne]

Rage gets my vote simplt cause I enjoy them more, Soul Asylum only really has one song that I like, and that's Misery, and that song probably never would've caught my attention had Kevin Smith not used it at the end of Clerks 2, when I heard that song I decided to go back and check out more of Soul Asylums stuff and wasn't really impressed by any of it, Misery remains the only song by them that I like, however Rage on the other hands has loads of great songs, could've been a little less political, but they still put out great music after awhile I just started to ignore the message they were trying to get across, and just enjoyed the music, that and any band who is fortunate enough to have someone as talented as Tom Morrello in their band deserves to advance at least past the first round, especially when going up against a band like Soul Asylum

 

[Steamboat Ricky]

I love Rage Against the Machine. They were an uber-political group of musical militants, and when I was in High School in the 90's, Evil Empire came out to the delight of many more politically in-tune kids. Bulls on Parade, People of the Sun, Bombtrack, Testify, Guerrilla Redio, Wake Up, Know Your Enemy, Freedom, Killing in the Name of...who says they can't go far in this tournament?

Great post. Rage is also in my top 10. There is no escaping their relevance in today's politically sensitive culture (pretty much every generation has been politically sensitive since Nam, tho), and they have the aggressive, rebellious sound to compliment it. The Battle of Los Angeles is also one of few albums that can be listened to and experienced without skipping a track. Every track is phenomenal.

I'm also biased to this album because it was my "good luck CD" during my high school senior year of tennis. I was playing better than I ever have (even when I played here in college), and therefore, I listened to that while driving for at least a month straight. I think I might have been legally insane, but I was beating dudes that were way better than me.

 

[HellBoundPower]

Gotta go with Rage Against the Machine here. Soul Asylum is an okay band, but Tom Morello really brought a unique guitar style into mainstream music in Rage. I also just simply prefer Rage's music, so they get my vote for both of those reasons.