Rage Against The Machine get Xmas No 1
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Twitter, Blog, Internet on
If ever the increasing power of social networks were doubted, here’s the proof that the Internet has found a voice and is making it heard. Rage Against the Machine has beaten all the odds to take the Christmas Number One in the music charts with Killing in the name, despite it being an almost foregone conclusion this time last week that it would be the X-Factor winner getting the glory yet again.
The race to the top of the music charts used to be fun and interesting, and I recall having a flutter at the bookies for my favoured record many a year. Sure, the music might not have been great but Christmas was the one time of the year when the novelty record stood a chance.
The the X-Factor came along and pretty much ruined Xmas for me by taking the chance out of the equation, and making it a dead cert that whichever act one would take their boring and bland poppy cover version of some song or other to the top spot courtesy of millions of TV fans eager to buy into whatever Simon Cowell was selling them.
Pop mogul Simon Cowell undoubtedly understands the music business and knows what sells and how to sell it. However, he seriously misunderstood just how powerful a force social networking can be and how it to knows how to influence real world music sales.
Thanks to Jon Morter, who started the campaign to topple the X Factor on Facebook, the 1992 expletive-laden rock/rap classic from Rage Against the Machine sold more than half a million copies and beat the X-Factor winner into the number 2 spot with a clear 50,000 lead in sales.
So there you have it, we saw it before when a Daily Mail columnist annoyed the Twitterati and we’ve seen it again with Facebook and Twitter users deciding to make a point. With an election coming up, you have to wonder just how seriously politicians will be taking the threat of a social networking influenced electorate finding their online voice.
Rated: 53.33% (3 votes)
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Comment by ROBERT WAGSTAFF - December 20, 2009 on 11:41 pm
Well i agree they are a excellent band if you like Gothic rock & this song is a bit on the weird side with all the profanities youth can muster, but there are many other songs out there that are far worse a better one would be Muppets do a good job!! But i suppose the Marilyn Manson mob will be pleased
Comment by Reblerebel - December 20, 2009 on 11:49 pm
This is amazing news I hope this wipes the grin off of Simon cowells smug face!
Comment by John Johnston - December 20, 2009 on 11:52 pm
Oh dear Robert, please comment on topics you know even a very small amount about. Gothic rock, Marilyn Manson and Rage Against the Machine, it’s like putting Bob Hope, Chico and Jay Z in the same genre!
Comment by damo - December 21, 2009 on 12:00 am
you are all a bunch of saddo’s.
instead of starting a campain, just buy the song you fkn like.
poor joe didnt deserve this even if cowell did !!
Comment by tony - December 21, 2009 on 12:08 am
Wow, the increasing power of social networks - i suppose the world is a better place now? Why don’t you all prove this campaign wasn’t against Joe and buy his song so he’ll be number 1 next week? now that’s a challenge the social networks could never achieve.
Comment by faye bond - December 21, 2009 on 12:23 am
this is really sad. lets pick an average old song and make it number one not cos we want to buy it or really like it but because we don’t want the xfactor to be number one to piss off simon cowell, who will make more money off rage anyway. smooth move guys very smooth.
Comment by Alexander - December 21, 2009 on 2:47 am
@Faye
Simon won’t make anything from the RATM sales, he owns a subsidiary of Sony, RATM are under Sony. RATM donated a large amount of the proceeds to a very respectable British charity.
@Tony
This wasn’t about Tony, Tony knows this and is perfectly happy being at no. 2. Remember, he WON X-Factor - Isn’t that enough? You’re just parroting Simon Cowell.
@Damo
If we’d all bought the song we liked, this strong political message wouldn’t have happened would it? Also, ‘Killing in the name of’ is one of my favourite songs.
@Robert
Wow, RATM are Goth Rock? That’s funny as hell! They only say the ‘F-word’, that’s hardly “All the profanities youth can muster”.
Comment by Rhys - December 23, 2009 on 12:12 am
Alexander,
I agree completely with your points.
I just wanted to point out, Joe won the X Factor, not Tony, who you were speaking to.
Anyway, how the hell could this campaign be about Joe when the campaign started ages ago.
Also, it’s not gothic rock, Robert. You’re the muppet here. It’s Rap Metal with a heavily politically charged message behind it.
And why shouldn’t the charts represent different people’s choice in music? Some of us are sick of auto-tuned rubbish!
Joe didn’t deserve it, as if he did, he’d be number 1, and it should just be expected that X Factor winners should get number 1 every year at Christmas.
Comment by Rhys - December 23, 2009 on 12:13 am
Damn it!
Stupid comment thing, it cut out my rant HTML tag 
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