Free download picks of the week

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE: www.thekillingzone.net/mp3

Not only are Rage Against the Machine pioneers in the rap-rock genre, but they are also pioneers in the respect to their choice of topic. With lyrics that remain some of the most leftist recorded to date, the Machine broke onto the international scene with their self-titled debut in 1992. With songs such as "Killing In The Name," and "Bullet In The Head" their debut album was an immediate smash that won the group the accolades of the press and fans alike.

In 1996, the group released its second album, Evil Empire, which entered the Billboard charts at number one and featured the song "Bulls On Parade." In support of the album, the group went on the legendary tour with opening act Wu-Tang Clan. 1999 saw the band release The Battle of Los Angeles that featured the band doing politically motivated concerts including recording the video for "Testify" outside of the New York Stock Exchange as well as a concert benefiting Pennsylvania death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Battle of Los Angeles also debuted at number one and went platinum by summer 2000. In the fall of 2000, the group played a legendary show outside of the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. In October, Zach de la Rocha left the group to work on a solo album and due to differences in the band. To date the solo album has not been released despite collaborations with DJ Shadow, among others.

Check out some complete live concerts from Rage's earlier years all the way through to one of their last concerts. You can check out some of the singles mentioned above, some of their legendary covers such as "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (featured on their post-breakup release Renegades), or some of their unreleased and rare tunes.

BAD RELIGION: www.badreligion.com/media

This site offers 16 full-length tracks spanning Bad Religion's entire career. This includes "We're Only Gonna Die," the track Sublime covered on their 40 Oz. To Freedom album, the 1994 radio hit "Infected," the b-side that finally made it onto an album "Anesthesia" with their career-spanning All-Ages. The songs Bad Religion chose to post on their Web site are sometimes raw, heavy, overproduced and somewhat cheesy, but they can also be very thoughtful, powerful songs.

Formed in 1980 in suburban Los Angeles Bad Religion is one of the few punk rock bands to last as long, with maybe Social Distortion and the Ramones as the few exceptions. Early in their career, the cast surrounding singer Greg Graffin changed frequently as the band released its first two EPs Into the Unknown and Back to the Known in '82 and '84 respectively. After the later album the band took a hiatus for three years. In 1988 the group recorded the album Suffer that saw their lineup become more stabilized around the core group that recorded the first EP and former Circle Jerks' guitarist Greg Hetson. In '89 the group released No Control and '90 saw the record Against The Grain. In '93 the group left Epitaph, the record label guitarist Brett Gurewitz founded in '82 in order to release the Bad Religion records, and signed with Atlantic.

While the group's records with Atlantic (Recipe For Hate, Stranger Than Fiction, The Grey Race, No Substance, and New America) sometimes lost some of the edginess the earlier records had, they still were relevant social commentaries done by a group that never shied away from singing about the most relevant topics. Their latest release, Empire Strikes First, came in June and was largely relevant to the upcoming election in that it largely expressed the frustration and anger toward the current administration.