Christmas is a time for buying everyone crap presents at the last minute and screaming at the endless plays of that bloody Slade song.
But over the course of the last four years, novelty records have been replaced by the bland and tedious cover versions from the X Factor winner. This year it was Joe McElderry, who got to record the timeless hit The Climb by, erm, Miley Cyrus.
But not everyone wants to see X Factor collect the coveted Christmas number one. They?d much rather it was by some other funky musician like Cliff Richard or the return of Bob The Builder. Or Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine. And, as we speak, it’s on course to beat Toothy Joe. Even though all the swearing will make Baby Jesus cry.
What we have is two sets of musical sheep following different sets of requests. Over in the X Factor camp, the show has made us aware of a possible winner for roughly six months. For all that insufferable time, the four judges have searched for talent that they can manipulate and make money with, and they ended up with Joe McElderry. The population of South Shields will pretty much guarantee a chunk of CD sales.
Then we're faced with the anti-Christmas single Killing In The Name by Rage Against The Machine, that’s at the centre of an internet campaign to get it to number one. Quite likely, the creators of this campaign picked this song based on the lyric ?fuck you I won't do what you tell me? even though, you know, people are being told to buy it. Ironic. Still, it's only a bit of fun, as the group’s manifesto states:
Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too… So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track Killing In The Name as a protest to the X Factor monotony?
So far, the Facebook group has over 500,000 members in it. Not that we don't think all the members will purchase the song, but quite likely it's the latest virtual trend that will be flogged to death on various social media outlets. What the group will probably lose out to is the physical CD pressing of Joe McElderry?s single. Small children will hound their parents to buy the single when it hits shops later this week. Given its ease for downloading off various sites, things don't look good. But Tom Morello, RATM’s guitarist voiced his support for the campaign on Twitter by saying:
“Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for num one spot on UK chart. England! Now is your time.”
Do we feel any more rebellious after being told to march on and wreck a small Geordie’s hopes for getting a number one? Not particularly. If anything, poor Simon Cowell won't be able to fist a turkey this year with all those ?50 notes he'd get from CD sales.
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Mark says
“Quite likely, the creators of this campaign picked this song based on the lyric
James says
Chris says
Either way Cowell’s going to make some money. I want Rage to be Xmas number 1 ‘The Climb’ is such a weak song and it looks like RATM are bookies favorite to win check it out here http://bit.ly/5s0RD5 plus there’s a list of sites selling ‘Killing In The Name Of’ and their prices, I think Amazon is the cheapest though.