Current Music & History

This section is all about what has happened in the 2000's so far and what is still happening. You will find information about the Iraq War and who followed their belief's by showing how they felt about the war through their songs. Some examples of these people are Rage Against the Machine and The All American Rejects (AAR), who's information both will be included in here. So please, with out further ado, please enjoy our current music section.

Rage against the Machin


Rage against the Machine was a very popular heavy metal band. Their songs are very anti-war, yet very intense, and due to it’s intensity, draws large audiences. The band was put together in Los Angeles, when Zack de la Rocha as singer, Tom Morello as guitarist, Brad Wilk as drummer, and Tim Commerford, (an old friend of Zack de la Rocha’s) as bass player met up and put together the famous song Bullet in the Head Since it started out on cassette tape, the popularity wasn’t immediate but when it was redone as a single, people loved it.
When Bullet in the Head granted them entrance to the major league, they decided to work with Sony, which was noticed and much to the surprise of detractors. But this did not stop them, and they released two other famous songs, Killing in the Name, and Bombtrack. Although there were signs of RATM falling apart, the band stayed together, and scored number one on the album charts with their album "Evil Empire" after four years of practice on their popular "Evil Empire", and it had paid off not to mention won a hit single with the song Bulls on Parade. Rage against the Machine joined the popular hip-hop group, the Wu-Tang Clan in 1997 for a summer tour. In 1999, the band showed that they’re still anti-war and anti-death by giving a benefit concert for Mumia Abu-Jamal who was to be executed. Later, they’re album The Battle of Los Angeles won number one on the charts again. Zack de la Rocha told the world his plans of a solo in 2000 and RATM gave a literally flaming concert. Unfortunately, about a month later, Tim Commerford was arrested for crude behavior at the MTV’s Video Music Awards, and an unusual interruption at a Limp Bizkit acceptance speech, where he joke-threatened suicide.

A reason why Rage Against the Machine is so popular is most of their song are anti-war, especially the Iraq war. Testify, is a song about how people want to stop the war, and people are pleading to stop it. The chorus is:

"Now testify
It's right outside our door
Now testify
Yes testify
It's right outside our door" (Rage Against the Machine, 1997)

"It's right outside our door" means, that war is consuming everybody, and controlling many people.
Renegades of Funk goes through all the famous artist in history that had something to do with morale courage. People such as Ray Charles, who was one of the first African- America musicians. The song also includes other people such as Rosa Parks, the African-American lady who sat in the front of a city bus.

 

The History of the Iraq War

The Iraq War started in February 2003, when President Bush decided that Sadaam Hussein was working on obtaining nuclear weapons and that he had to be stopped, Sadaam had not opened up to inspectors. Although, Sadaam did open up to inspectors in the winter of 2002-2003, a fact President Bush had overlooked, but ignored, and forced out his U.N. inspection team so the invasion of Iraq could carry on. He agreed with Donald Rumsfeld that the job could be done with only 150,000 troops, ignoring the Army chief of staff, who was talking sense with his more realistic idea of hundreds of thousands of troops being required to seize an entire country. Bush appeared to only listen to what he wanted to hear, because he also only listened to the pentagon’s side of the story when they said Iraq was unanimously against all that Sadaam Hussein had done to the government, and would welcome America into their country, desperate to be free. Bush also came to the conclusion somehow, that the war would cost much less than 100 billion dollars.
March 19, 2003, Bush openly claimed that they had found weapons of mass destruction in possession of Sadaam Hussein. Furthermore, he announced that we knew exactly where they were, and we had to send in the troops to prevent Sadaam from using them despite the fact that we had not discovered any definite proof of nuclear weapons in Iraq. A team of experts on Iraq tried to discuss ideas of the war with the pentagon and have them see the other side on the war. They were all blackballed and the leader of the team, Jay Garner, was fired. A possible cause for Jay Garner’s loss of his job could be that he supported Tom Warrick, director of the Future of the Iraq project, which had been put together by the State Department. It was very anti-war. Jay Garner was replaced with Paul Bremer, who disbanded the Iraqi army. Said the former Secretary of the Army “The administration is unwilling to come to grips with what it will take to win the war.” Although, this view was ignored.
The Ramadan Carnage occurred, and Paul Bremer and the administration, due to being in a very difficult spot, sped up the training of the homegrown Iraqi police, and putting the structure of the whole program together in a very slipshod way, deciding it was time to bail out. Not only that, but Donald Rumsfeld refused to increase the number of troops in Iraq, despite that the estimate of troops required to invade Iraq (150,000) was far to low, he refused to send even 1,000 more troops in, despite the amount of killings going on.
Bush started to favor blaming the Iraqi War on Sadaam Hussein’s resistance to letting U.N. inspectors in to investigate his weapons program. He told the Press: “The world said, ‘Disarm, disclose or face serious consequences.’ … We worked to make sure that Saddam Hussein heard the message of the world. And when he chose to deny the inspectors, when he chose not to disclose, then I had the difficult decision to make to remove him. And we did.” although Sadaam had agreed to shut down any weapons programs he might have. Most likely though, he probably would have continued a weapons program secretly.
Although reporters did not argue against the Bush Campaign, it does not mean they supported it. Bush had insisted that Sadaam had completely denied all requests by the United Nations to investigate. Bush repeated this statement over and over again and when he was in power, a reporter could very well have lost his or her reputation, and possibly their job. It was decided easier to bully Al Gore instead, so Bush had a reputation of being the answer to problems in Iraq.
Of course, despite his faults, Bush had not done everything wrong. He had overlooked a few facts and unfortunately, it had a large effect on the entire country. When you’re president of the United States, you cannot overlook things, and Bush was not prepared for the job yet. I don’t support Bush, but some people underestimate him. I think he is not competent enough for the United States, not just plain bad. But he did not handle his incompetent mistakes very well either. Instead of coming to terms with the fact that he had overlooked that Sadaam had let United Nations inspectors in to look for nuclear weapons, he launched the invasion in order not to lose popularity. Furthermore, he repeated that Sadaam had not let in inspectors so that the war would seem justified. It has become obvious that President Bush is not a competent president. But now, it’s not Bush who’s the problem that needs to be stopped, or given attention. It’s the problems in Iraq.

 

The All American Rejects


The All American Rejects started in Stillwater, Oklahoma. The band was started by Tyson Ritter(vocals/pianos), and Nick Wheeler (guitar/programing). The Band was started in 2000. The All American Rejects had a big problem performing because they didn't have a drummer and Nick Wheeler had to program drum sounds for the band. The band was started when Tyson and Nick were still in highschool. In 2002, the All American Rejects were signed to Poppy records. Later than year, Mike Kennerty(guitar),and Chris Gaylor(drummer) joined the All American Rejects. In just two years, The All American Rejects turned famous. The most famous songs that the All American Rejects wrote were “Move Along”, “Dirty Little Secret”and “It Ends Tonight”.