3 album covers in our archive
Behind the Covers currently documents 3 Rage Against the Machine album covers from 1992 to 1999. Read together, the entries show how the artwork changed from release to release, with each story identifying the designers, photographers, source material, and design decisions behind the sleeve.
Cover evolution
Revolutionary spray-painted graffiti silhouette by LA street artist Joey Krebs creates one of rap-metal's most iconic covers. The raised-fist figure embodies Rage's political defiance through raw urban art.
A wholesome caped boy in a red superhero jersey beams out from Rage Against the Machine's 1996 album Evil Empire. He isn't a band member or a model. He's an 11-year-old whose art-dealer father commissioned the painting as a birthday gift, and the band quietly rewrote his emblem to make a point about America.
The cover uses one of the most searing photographs in 20th-century journalism — the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc in 1963 Saigon — making an unambiguous political statement that aligns the band with the most extreme form of political protest.
