Rage Against Christmas? Charts Against The Machine?

Don't get me wrong I am a big fan of Rage Against the Machine, their debut was one of the first albums I ever owned, but them being at number 1 for Christmas is nothing more than a half million strong self congratulatory circle jerk for the holier than thou music snobs who have infiltrated every section of society.

For the past four years the x factor release has owned the number 1 spot for Christmas, how can it not when over 15 million people consistently watch the final. In the "ultimate act of rebellion" a couple from Essex started a facebook campaign to get RATM to number one, nearly a million people joined to stick it to Cowell, who is "the man" and as we all know sticking it to the man is very important. The battle has been everywhere for the past fortnight giving relentless chart updates and comments from both Joe McElderry and members of RATM. The tension built and on Friday RATM were only 7,000 ahead with the big shopping day of Saturday still to come. In the end Rage stretched their lead finally totalling 50,000 more than Joe. But how could this happen, has the pop machine been stopped forever? Are the floodgates open for "real musicians" to clog up the charts?

Don't be dozy. This is merely a blip for Cowell and his reality juggernaut. Joe will no doubt be number 1 this week and will overall sell way more than Killing In The Name. Most people see it as the youth rising up to be counted standing against the tyranny of manufactured pop. I see it as a hollow temporary victory.

In his naivety, Joe seemed to do everything possible to sway the anti x factor brigade into buying the single. In The Sun he threw darts at pictures of RATM singer Zack De La Roche, describing Killing In The Name as "dreadful" and wondering "How could anyone enjoy this?" I know for a fact this persuaded many fans to buy more copies and many Rage fans that hadn't bothered with the campaign to download their version. Whether this would account for the 50,000 that Joe lost by I don't know, but it would have been a much closer contest had Joe kept his trap closed.

While Joe was putting his foot in it, Rage were saying the right things like "down with the man.... man" and rattling off buzz phrases alternative folk appreciate. Terms like "real fans of music", "rebel music" and "Let the people decide". The piÚce de résistance was Rage Against The Machine's performance of the track on Radio 5live's breakfast show, where after promising a censored version singer Zack launched into the closing crescendo of expletives. Further encouragment came when guitarist Tom Morello promised to play a free UK gig should they get to number 1. Isn't that just shameless bribery? Of course not, they were just trying to rip the machine down.

The main issue I had with the campaign was that it reeked of hypocrisy, Rage Against The Machine may write their own songs and have worked very hard to get to the top for nearly 20 years, but they are still part of the machinery they are trying so desperately to rebel against. Signed to a major label (the same label as Joe if you're interested) the role of underdog would have been much better for a young up and coming band who don't already have multi platinum selling albums or millions in the bank. The songs closing refrain of "f*** you I won't do what you tell me" is meant to be a symbol of individuality and rebellion, instead it got turned into a message of mass conformity. One can argue mass conformity is needed to tear down an existing dominant ideology but that is a piece for another time.

I do feel quite bad for Joe in a weird way, the Rage single was being sold for as little as 29p compared to the 79p for a downloaded copy of The Climb and almost five pounds for a physical copy. Joe fans no doubt spent more that week than Rage Against The Machine fans, yet their guy only got to number 2. Another reason I feel some sympathy for the guy is that many Rage fans purchased the single from a multitude of websites, on the "get RATM to number 1" facebook group, people were bragging about how many times they downloaded it and listing the websites that counted towards the charts. Joe's fans were on the whole less bothered by the battle so this apathy coupled with the higher price meant on the whole Joe fans purchased one copy, so ironically The Climb was sold to more individual customers. But he still didn't get to number one, in the past mass buying of singles from a shop was frowned upon but now in a digital age has it suddenly become acceptable? It screams double standards to me but hey if we're fighting the power it's ok to break the rules. Right guys?

So where does this leave all the parties involved? Joe will have the number 1 single next week and probably for a couple of subsequent weeks. Everyone who downloaded Rage Against The Machine's song will sit back with a smug sense of pride before settling back into their routine of listening to their elitist music, whilst the charts will go back to being full of insipid ballads and p*** poor r n b. So who are the big winners out of all of this? Undoubtedly, Sony BMG who sold nearly a million units in one week earning a shed load of money. Written out of most coverage however is Shelter who have been given "over £70,000" from the campaign. The band has also said they will donate "the majority" of their profits from the Christmas sales to charity. This means that some good will have come out the campaign and perhaps renders my cynicism unjustified and makes me a horrible human being for criticising something that has done so much good for a worthwhile charity.