The second release by this rock-rap supergroup — Rage Against the Machine guitar virtuoso Tom Morello and the Coup's political firebrand-in-chief Boots Riley — has one ace in the hole: a full-fathom cover of LL Cool J's "Mama Said Knock You Out." If any song deserves to be bellowed over an electric-guitar maelstrom, it's LL's goofy ode to hip-hop-as-heavyweight-blood-sport. Elsewhere here, Morello and Riley are deserving of respect but sometimes hard to love, as Riley's sloganeering ("Revolution is the new 'fuck you!'") grows tiresome quickly.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.