Bit of a wordy blog today as thought I should pass comment on this whole Xmas number 1 chart battle.
Well it looks like Rage Against The Machine poured hot water on Simon Cowell's plans for a Christmas Number One with the winner of this year's X-Factor, beating Joe McElderry.
So an Internet campaign via facebook (member 800,000+) beats a prime time ITV show (viewers 19 million) to take a song to the number one spot, leaving Simon Cowell seething.
What does this tell us? Well, numerous people have poured their opinions about it at every opportunity, claiming it as proof that the public won't buy into manufactured X-Factor pop, and that this signals the end of Simon Cowell's reign on the charts. Countless other people have raised the fact that RATM are signed to Sony, who also look after the X-Factor act's and that the whole campaign is a ploy by a major label and that the people who bought into the Facebook campaign are as guilty as the x-factor fans.
All a little bit to serious i think.
What are my thoughts - well I have two of them.
1) Joe McElderry's track is weak. It is not a patch on Girls Aloud's Xmas Number 1 'Sound Of The Underground' or any of the other X-Factor / Pop Idol / Pop Star The Rival's winner's songs for that matter. It is a cover of a little known original which has no meaning to anyone, sung by a new artist who from the little we have seen of him seems to have no striking personality or back story. People haven't fallen for him like they did Gareth Gates, Will Young, Leone Lewis or Alexandra Burke - he seemed to win by default of being the best of a bad bunch.
'Killing In The Name Of' on the other hand is an amazing song, which has been in the public consciousness for 19 years, and aside from the songs strong political meaning within the song has a huge significance to many generations of music fans through soundtracking their lives. RATM as a band have one of the most loyal and passionate fan bases, and have spent their whole careers finding that perfect balance between being a cult credible act and achieving mainstream success. They have personalities & opinions and mean something to people.
2) It was a massive piece of fun. When was the last time anyone cared about who was Number 1 at Christmas? Or number 1 at any point during the year for that matter? The charts have become meaningless to everyone. I remember devoutly tuning in to the Top 40 (with Mark Goodier!) when I was a kid, and celebrating certain songs getting to number 1 (when The Verve's Drugs Don't Work got to number 1, the Blur v's Oasis battle standing out for me in particular).
So in conclusion what should we take from this....
Well today I was on a coach when it got to 6.50pm, and without a radio - so I called my dad to find out for me. That made me realise what this was actually all about.
It wasn't about a David v's Golith chart battle or a turning in the tide of the public attitude to mass produced pop. It was simply about the quality of a song, the fact that people were able to get excited about the charts again and above all else FUN. Pop music is meant to be fun, always has been and always will be & the fact that in 2009 our Christmas Number 1 will be a song called Killing In The Name of, with a refrain of 'Fuck You I won't do what you tell me' is in my eyes simply hilarious.
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