The album has been certified double platinum by the
Recording Industry Association of America, indicating sales of at least two million units. It would be the last full-length studio album of original material released by the band before their first breakup in 2000 (their
next album consisted entirely of
covers and was released after the breakup).
Concept
"Voice of the Voiceless", a song referring to American political activist and journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal, references a letter written by
Mao Zedong, called "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire".[5][6] Another Rage–Mumia–Mao connection can be seen in Mumia's paraphrased words from Mao's "power grows out of the barrel of a gun" when Mumia gave
testimony in his trial for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer in an altercation after a
traffic stop: "It is America who has seized political power from the
Indian [Native American] race, not by God, not by Christianity, not by goodness, but by the barrel of a gun."[7]
The album's cover art was an original piece spraypainted by Joey Krebs (also known as "The Street Phantom", "The Phantom Street Artist", or Joel Jaramillo), a well-known Los Angeles
graffiti artist who has exhibited at numerous galleries in Los Angeles, New York City, and throughout the United States.[8] Phantom's graffiti work regularly uses an outline profile of a human with text overlaid.[9]
In their year-end lists, Time and Rolling Stone magazines both named The Battle of Los Angeles the best album of 1999. Retrospectively, it was ranked number 426 on Rolling Stone's 2003 list of
the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2005, the album was listed at number 53 in
Spin magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums from 1985–2005, as well as number 369 in Rock Hard magazine's book The 500 Greatest Rock & Metal Albums of All Time.[20] In 2021, Metal Hammer magazine named it one of the 20 best metal albums of 1999.[21]
Awards
1999: #1 Time Magazine Critic Pick (The Best Music of 1999)
1999: #1 Rolling Stone Critic Pick (Best Album of 1999)
In the US, some retail stores gave a free promo CD to those who pre-ordered the album that contained the songs "Clear the Lane" (from the "
Killing in the Name" single) and "
Hadda Be Playing on the Jukebox" (Live) (from the "
Bulls on Parade" single). In Australia, certain chains gave a promo tape titled New... Live... Rare to those who pre-ordered the album that featured "
Calm Like a Bomb" and the aforementioned two songs repeated on both sides. The versions of all three songs were the same as those that had been previously released.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone. ‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.
Appearances in other media
"
Guerrilla Radio" is featured in Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (2000). The song as it appears in the
Nintendo 64 version of the game is heavily edited, as it is in Madden NFL 10 (2009). Both "Testify" and "Guerrilla Radio" are featured in the 2008 video game Rock Band 2, being on-disc and downloadable, respectively.
^"Listen - Danmarks Officielle Hitliste - Udarbejdet af AIM Nielsen for IFPI Danmark - Uge 44". Ekstra Bladet (in Danish).
Copenhagen. November 14, 1999.