On an utterly trivial note it amuses me that Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine is the Christmas number 1 having beaten another of Simon Cowell’s tedious products
The hot favourite had been X Factor winner Something McElderry with a cover of a Miley Cyrus song. Going by the comments he made during the week,Mephistopholes Cowell is probably not happy (but who gives a shit?)
Krissi Murrison, editor of the NME, stated “It proves not only that the public have better taste than Simon Cowell gives them credit for, but that it there is actually an alternative to the pap we have been fed by X Factor for the past six Christmases, The assumption was obviously that no-one could topple the combined power of ITV and X Factor - especially not a grassroots campaign with zero marketing budget. But this just proves that anything is possible. The public has had enough of them hi-jacking the charts with second-rate karaoke cover versions, and this is our way of showing that.”
A Facebook group called “Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No 1” quickly transformed itself into a major grassroots protest against the X-Factor attracting more than 980,000 followers. The campaign took on an increasingly anti-corporate and pro-social justice tone with followers encouraging each other to donate to the homeless charity Shelter which received £65,000 in public donations. Rage Against the Machine also lent their support to the campaign, promising to donate their royalties to Shelter and to play a thank you gig in the UK next year if the campaign was successful.
The other losers are Bookies who are set to make a major loss from the Rage victory. Rupert Adams, from William Hill, said. “We’ll probably take quite a hit, quite possibly a six or seven
figure hit” My heart bleeds for that bunch of parasites.
I don’t care for RATM but I care for X-Factor crap even less. It’s not that the singers are bad, far from it, but they are straitjacketed into churning out bland crap by svengalis like Cowell and Louis Walsh. More power I say to the campaign which cocked a snook at an entertainment industry and made a lot of money for a deserving charity to boot!
13 comments:
Merry Christmas. Being number 2 is still pretty valuable.
Power to the people!!!
Sad that this is the extent of it.
Merry Christmas COlin!
Ah Calum, today we scale the commanding heights of the charts, tomorrrow it will be the commanding heights of our ecnoomy... or something like that anyway!
Check out "The X Factor Song (2009)"
@ youtube.com/thisisjohnnyblack
and let's keep sticking it to Simple Simon
A victory of sorts.
Of sort... if you could mobilise people for other more important things then...
'Fuck you I won't do what you tell me' could be my credo. RATM has been against right-wing politics in the US for many years, and they give lots of money to charities. And they seem to motivate young people to act.
Quote from de la Rocha:
"We're very very ecstatic and excited about the song reaching the number one spot. We want to thank everyone that participated in this incredible, organic, grass-roots campaign. It says more about the spontaneous action taken by young people throughout the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly. When young people decide to take action they can make what's seemingly impossible, possible."
FB is now the third most visited website in the world, with >300 million active users.
This Christmas we should take a moment, and reflect on the young people, needlessly killed in Mafia Wars.
I don't like their music very much Pouty but if Rage do get more young people active then I am all for them!
Ah Ren you are right. I think we should ahve Two minutes silence for them!
Isn't your title a little inaccurate? Surely the score is now one-all, given that Cowell won last year :-)
Just this year's fixture Dave!
I love this story. I'm not a Rage fan either, but I loathe that sugary TV pop that Cowell and Co have been churning out.
That's what I loved about it too AFM!
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