Fuck You, I Won't Buy What You Sell Me

[Jumble Cashback]

Well, as many of you may know, there is now a powerful on-line campaign to quash the X-Factor single's chances of reaching Christmas No. 1.  However, I thought I'd create a little more awareness, just in case.  There is now a facebook group with approaching half a million members, all pledging to buy 'Killing in the Name' by Rage Against the Machine between the 13th and 20th of December, in order to stop Cowell's latest thundercunt making the top spot.  I'm not going to pretend like this a charity (it burns my balls the way Louis Walsh pleads with viewers to vote, like he's Bob fucking Geldof), the achievement here is a trivial one, but, if anyone fancies sticking it to the X-fuckter, it might make good sport.  Obviously, you don't have to join the FB group to buy the single, but if you want to, or just want to confirm the details, here's the link:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=rage+against+&init=quick#/group.php?gid=2228594104&ref=search&sid=722115970.892915381..1

Remember, only downloads from chart-listed websites (like iTunes) made between the 13th and the 20th will count.  Also, I appreciate that not every member of the FB group will likely buy the single, but the numbers are getting stronger so it might not matter.

Also, I only just accessed the group while I was writing this and noticed that my topic heading (which I thought was all clever, like) is the group's slogan on their Facebook pic.  So I guess, not as original as I thought.  Anyway, if you fancy going along with this (as I will) it might make for a nice little Christmas surprise, but, if you are swithering, probably best to just donate to charity instead.

[Roy*Mallard]

Ha, nice idea. Fucking hate all that x factor balderdash - they take themselves far too seriously.

[Jemble Fred]

I'd been shrugging this off, ignored the group invites, have no interest in Rage Against The Machine etc – it's just extremists either way – popular trash vs reactionary crustiness.

But fuck it, I've been swayed. It's too nice an idea to see Cowell's hopes shat on this Xmas, a lovely way to see in a new decade we all hope is a huge improvement on this last one.

So I'm definitely in.

It would be very unfair to suggest that this is what swayed me: http://www.marksteelinfo.com/writing/default.asp?id=137

[An tSaoi]

Why chose Rage Against The Machine? Surely it would be better to pluck some unsigned, but deserving act from obscurity, rather than a well-known band. Some leukemia child on myspace with a guitar or something of the sort.

[The Plunger]

There's a very interesting article on this on Popjustice. Summarised below :

Regular Popjustice viewers will know how tiresome we find supposedly 'viral' campaigns of the 'get this song to Number One LOL' variety and one of this year's Christmas efforts is an attempt to get Rage Against The Machine's 'Killing In The Name' to Christmas Number One in order to 'show Simon Cowell a thing or two' or something.

From what we can gather the point is to divert money away from the 'machine' of The X Factor, which propels its own acts (and other Sony artists) into the charts at the end of every year. Which might be slightly more effective if Rage Against The Machine weren't signed to, er, a Sony label. Still, punk rock, right?

Well, apart from the whole 'give Sony loads more money as a result of Simon Cowell's actions' thing there's a deeper problem at the heart of all this, too. 'Killing In The Name' is being embraced here for its perceived subversiveness, but it was released almost two decades ago and the fact that it's being wheeled out again as an 'alternative' - that it needs to be wheeled out again as an alternative - is proof of how ineffective it must have been. It (in the sense that 'it' has here been interpreted as 'a revolution against the mainstream') failed. The mainstream won. And do you know what? When it comes to the Top 40, and hit singles, and the Christmas Number One, the mainstream always will win. The Top 40 is a popularity chart and the alternative to popular music is unpopular music which by definition isn't popular enough to get in the Top 40.

As a sidenote, how tragic that it's a two-decades-old song that has been chosen to front this campaign.

[Jemble Fred]

Yeah, I agree with all that, the form of this protest is very very poor, but it's still worth a go.

[An tSaoi]

Plus Rage Against the Machine are shit.

[Neil]

Haha, even Mark Steel falls for it this year, amazing, absolutely amazing. 

[Captain Crunch]

Stuff like this crops up every year but I am surprised how many of my 'friends' have joined this FB group.  I wonder how many of them will put their money where their mouth is? 

[An tSaoi]

They'll probably fileshare it, and wonder why sales haven't gone up, the twats.

_{I'm sure your friends aren't twats.}

[Jemble Fred]

There's a very interesting article on this on Popjustice. Summarised below :

Maybe that should be posted on the FB page. I would honestly do it, but as I made clear above, I'm far too clueless on this topic to counter any ripostes.

[Jumble Cashback]

I'm certainly not doing it to knock anybody's ill-gotten profits or to make some kind of anti-capitalist/alternative music statement.  I'm just extremely sick of X-Factor.  I do really like 'Killing in the Name', so that helps, but I just don't want another Christmas number one to come out of the same, boring show.  In 50 years time, when people look back at the record books for the UK Christmas charts, I don't want it to say '2005-present:  X-Factor winners'.  I know it'll fade out of popularity eventually, but I can't be arsed waiting.  If anything, it might just encourage some more interesting releases next year.  It seems like forever since 'Mad World' made it to the top spot.

[confettiinmyhair]

http://musosguide.com/it-had-to-be-bells-ringing-the-battle-for-chrismas-number-one/8997

[Neil]

I'm certainly not doing it to knock anybody's ill-gotten profits or to make some kind of anti-capitalist/alternative music statement.  I'm just extremely sick of X-Factor.  I do really like 'Killing in the Name', so that helps, but I just don't want another Christmas number one to come out of the same, boring show.  In 50 years time, when people look back at the record books for the UK Christmas charts, I don't want it to say '2005-present:  X-Factor winners'.  I know it'll fade out of popularity eventually, but I can't be arsed waiting.  If anything, it might just encourage some more interesting releases next year.  It seems like forever since 'Mad World' made it to the top spot.

Yes, it's shit, but X Factor has had, what, about 3 months of advertising and blanket media coverage, and that can't be countered by a viral marketing campaign like this.  RATM are on Sony, the site and campaign was set up and started by a Sony man, all you're doing - if you go along with this transparent 'credible alternative' nonsense - is simply giving the same people your money anyway.  That's what's so utterly self-defeating about something like this; people who probably don't really give a shit about the charts, are going to run out and spend money in a doomed bid to try and shape them, simply so they can show their online mates how little they care about a crap TV show.  Bottom-line: Sony get even more of people's money than they would have anyway.  And the internet once more looks like a venue for gullible bangwagon-jumpers.

It's like the Big Brother fans who rail against 'Endemol favourites', and therefore start campaigns to try and get Aisleyne to win instead - it never once occurs to them to display their antipathy by not giving Endemol their money.  Absolutely bonkers. 

Mark 'anti-capitalist' Steel's justification makes him sound like a right twat:

Already the bookies are making it favourite to be X Factor's main challenger, so what an end this could be to a decade. We might be facing indefinite Etonian rule, and ceaseless unwinnable conflicts that would beat the Hundred Years War except the planet will have disintegrated by then, but we can beat them on this. So buy the single between the 13th and the 19th. And if it works, next year in the X Factor final there'll be a double act called Fit '*Wicked singing a romantic version of "Killing in the Name Of", while 60 dancers descend on ropes setting fire to a banker's bonus.

[Jemble Fred]

I think you cynics should reconsider your stance now that it's been revealed that NEIL BUCHANAN IS SUPPORTING IT!

BBC 6MUSIC (Shaun Keaveny/Music Week), PHILL JUPITUS, BILL BAILEY, SKY NEWS, KERRANG!, JOHNNY LYDON (Sex Pistols/PIL), BBC RADIO 1, METAL HAMMER, ABSOLUTE RADIO (Matt Berry PLEASE do my mobile's voicemail message! love Jon), YAHOO!, GIGWISE, DROWNED IN SOUND, CHANNEL 5, ORANGE NEWS, ENTER SHIKARI, FALL OUT BOY, XFM, ROSS NOBLE, SKIN, GRAHAM BONNET, PHANTOM FM Dublin, LENNY HENRY, BBC RADIO 5LIVE (Kate Silverton), JACK RYDER, NEIL BUCHANAN, TOM MALCOLM (Twestival), MARTINE McCUTCHEON, ANDY SCOTT-LEE, DARREN HAYES, FIGHTSTAR, MALCOLM MIDDLETON, GET CAPE WEAR CAPE FLY, MAGISTRATES, THE CRAVE, TONY RUDD, and of course SEABROOK CRISPS!

[Little Hoover]

On one of the very rare occasion I got dragged along to a nightclub that supposedly played indie stuff (it wasn't the nice stuff I think of as indie at all) and they played Killing in the Name. And because of my bigoted views on nightclubs and the kind of people that go, this is proof that it's very bad and wrong.

It's got the word fuck in a lot I suppose, so it appeals to cunts.

Perhaps we should start a campaign to get Mike Reid's Chantilly Lace to number one.

[Jumble Cashback]

RATM are on Sony, the site and campaign was set up and started by a Sony man, all you're doing - if you go along with this transparent 'credible alternative' nonsense - is simply giving the same people your money anyway.  That's what's so utterly self-defeating about something like this; people who probably don't really give a shit about the charts, are going to run out and spend money in a doomed bid to try and shape them, simply so they can show their online mates how little they care about a crap TV show.  Bottom-line: Sony get even more of people's money than they would have anyway.  And the internet once more looks like a venue for gullible bangwagon-jumpers.

It's like the Big Brother fans who rail against 'Endemol favourites', and therefore start campaigns to try and get Aisleyne to win instead - it never once occurs to them to display their antipathy by not giving Endemol their money.  Absolutely bonkers. 

I refer you to this part of my above statement:

I'm certainly not doing it to knock anybody's ill-gotten profits or to make some kind of anti-capitalist/alternative music statement.  I'm just extremely sick of X-Factor.

And to my opening post.  You know, the 'better off giving to charity' bit.

[Jumble Cashback]

Perhaps we should start a campaign to get Mike Reid's Chantilly Lace to number one.

I grant you that would be much, much better.

[spanky]

The people that ordinarily still buy singles are clearly the same demographic who love X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and the like, so I don't have a problem with a song they've bought based on following the artist through months of TV getting to number one, but then I couldn't give a crap about the top 10 for the other 51 weeks a year either.


If they had to campaign a song, couldn't something related to Christmas have been chosen rather than a sweary song for rebellious sixth-formers?

[PaulTMA]

It's good to hear of a revival of this classic protest song heavily endorsing the plight of 12 year old boys who've been instructed to tidy their bedrooms, but have a sneaky cassette single hidden under their beds (alongside Smokie feat. Roy 'Chubby' Brown) for moments of headphone-based remonstration.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Where were these 500,000 Facebook supporters when Malcolm Middleton needed them?  Eh?

[Jemble Fred]

Where were these 500,000 Facebook supporters when Malcolm Middleton needed them?  Eh?

Googling his name to find out who he is.

His sitcom's funny though lol.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Heh - reading back, I see he was in that list of supporters that you posted.

How many people bought the Jeff Buckley version of Hallelujah last year?  I bet it wasn't half a million.

[Marty McFly]

I think you cynics should reconsider your stance now that it's been revealed that NEIL BUCHANAN IS SUPPORTING IT!

I only found out the other day that Neil Buchanan was in a heavy metal band in the 1970s, that are still going! The gig posters even say 'including NEIL BUCHANAN of TV's ART ATTACK!'. Makes sense that a grizzly old rocker like Neil would support it.

How about a campaign to get Gary Glitter's 'Another Rock And Roll Christmas' to number 1?

[PaulTMA]

I only found out the other day that Neil Buchanan was in a heavy metal band in the 1970s, that are still going! The gig posters even say 'including NEIL BUCHANAN of TV's ART ATTACK!'. Makes sense that a grizzly old rocker like Neil would support it.

How about a campaign to get Gary Glitter's 'Another Rock And Roll Christmas' to number 1?

Whip up the Facebook group.

[Jumble Cashback]

How about a campaign to get Gary Glitter's 'Another Rock And Roll Christmas' to number 1?

Well, Mark Steele's 'noose' prediction would still be applicable.

[Neil]

I refer you to this part of my above statement:

I was talking generally about anyone who does this, rather than you specifically.  However, I refer you to the bit of my post you didn't quote, where I pointed out that X Factor has been running for months.  Since August, in fact, so any kind of protest is doomed to failure, and it's entirely self-defeating anyway when the same people end up with the money:

Series 6 began airing on 22 August 2009 and will run until 19 December 2009.

And to my opening post.  You know, the 'better off giving to charity' bit.

That's not what you said you were doing, though.  So what is the actual point of buying this single, which IS what you said you would do?  How is that worthwhile as a 'protest' of the X Factor?  Protesting bandwagon-buying by indulging in more bangwagon-buying? 

As spanky says, the X Factor lot have been following the show, and the fortunes of the contestants, for ages, and it's actually probably fair enough they'd want to shell out for the single.  It certainly seems more honourable than the petulant, spite-buyers who think they can change the world and bloody the nose of The Man by err, giving him their money anyway.

[chand]

Yes, it's shit, but X Factor has had, what, about 3 months of advertising and blanket media coverage, and that can't be countered by a viral marketing campaign like this.  RATM are on Sony, the site was set up by a Sony man, all you're doing - if you go along with this transparent 'credible alternative' nonsense - is simply giving the same people your money anyway.  That's what's so self-defeating about something like this; people who probably don't really give a shit about the charts, are going to run out and spend money in a doomed bid to try and shape them, simply so they can show their online mates how little they care about a crap TV show. 

It's not like the Christmas number 1 is treated as some objective standard of quality, it's just silly fluff for the drinking season. It doesn't mean anything, and I think Cowell doesn't really care. His records will still make shitloads of money, the TV show is still watched by millions...not being number one might briefly dent his pride, but he's cynical enough to know his role. He's not labouring under the delusion that his music is vital, life-changing music.

I remember watching Cowell during one of these shows and there was a contestant with long hair who fancied himself as a rocker, came on and sang some Nirvana song. Cowell questioned what the fuck he was doing there, saying that Kurt Cobain would have hated this show, it wasn't what Nirvana were about at all. If I remember rightly he told the guy that if he wanted to follow Kurt's example he should be writing his own songs and trying to make it the way rock musicians do, not taking part in a glorified karaoke contest. Simon Cowell is a shitbag responsible for some fucking awful music, but he's a marketing juggernaut and the only way he's ever going to be stopped is by people not watching his show. Joining some petulant protest which just makes more money for Sony BMG isn't going to do anything but make some of those protesting feel good about themselves and their 79p rebellion.

We should be encouraging people to ignore the X Factor and channel that anger into making new music (anyone can fucking do it), not countering marketing with more fucking marketing.

[lipsink]

I bet that guy and his band from that mobile ad on about, like, using Twitter, yeah, are like totally into this.

[Jemble Fred]

Wow, that Facebook page is fucking mental. I did mention the Sony thing about 20 minutes ago to see what folk would say, but the wall has moved on so much now that I gave up trying to find my post after TEN 'See more posts' clicks.