With the Lights Out by Nirvana
With the Lights Out is a box set, containing three CDs and one DVD, of previously rare or unreleased material, including b-sides, demos, rough rehearsal recordings and live recordings, from the American rock band Nirvana. It was released in November 2004. The title was taken from the lyric, "With the lights out, it's less dangerous" from the band's 1991 "Smells Like Teen Spirit" single. With the Lights Out set a record for single week sales of any box set, with 105,760 units sold. As of 2007, it has sold over 925,000 units in the United States alone, according to Nielson SoundScan. It has also been certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
<b>100 Best Albums</b> It’d be interesting to know just how many suburban kids learned about Che Guevara, or that the FBI targeted Martin Luther King for his opposition to the Vietnam War, from <i>Rage Against the Machine</i>. It isn’t that its politics are obscure. If anything, part of the reason the album remains so powerful is the way it captures the generalised angst kids feel towards parents (“F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me!”) while also pointing at broader forms of control regarding education (“Take the Power Back”), law enforcement (“Killing in the Name”) and the carceral system (“Settle for Nothing”). Like Nirvana’s <i>Nevermind</i> or even the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ <i>Blood Sugar Sex Magik</i>, it reshaped ’90s rock and helped bring underground styles into the mainstream. It also plugs into a world beyond itself—the kind of music you can take to the gym but also build a syllabus around.<br /> Like the revolutionaries, MCs and hard rock that inspired it, <i>Rage Against the Machine</i> exists in all caps. Its most lasting lyrics—“Some of those that work forces/Are the same that burn crosses” (“Killing in the Name”), “Anger is a gift” (“Freedom”)—have the instant memorability of a protest chant; its riffs democratise their anger, having been stripped of the flashy, technical stuff and restored to the Black blues they come from. The immediacy isn’t just a metaphor for their message; it’s a functional way to spread the word and put power into the hands of the people: Why bother learning “Stairway to Heaven” when you can just learn “Bombtrack”?<br /> It’s easy to see the ironies of a multi-platinum band advocating for radical left politics. But the music business has always found ways to monetise rebellion, from Elvis to John Lennon to the Sex Pistols. <i>Rage Against the Machine</i> transcends its contradictions by standing inside them and giving itself over anyway. Guitarist Tom Morello remembers a record executive hearing the band practice “Killing in the Name” as Zack de la Rocha screamed, “F**k you, I won’t do what you tell me!” 16 times. The exec sheepishly asked if this was the direction that they were going in. Yes, Morello said, it was. But just remember: He didn’t have to.
