So, would you download Rage Against The Machine to make it Number One this week? (An X factor themed thread)

You know, Facebook page/group, 400,000 members, um.. could this happen?

Simon Cowell seems displeased, which seems to have fed the fire.

Tedious despicable student japery. With a bit of luck Zack de la Rocha will publically call for people to stop being twats.

But there's not exactly a successful history of nobheads/Radio 1 DJs trying to game the chart like this so I doubt anything will happen.

See also: successful Facebook campaigns to Bun Dem Paedophiles, Make Jedward Prime Minister etc etc

It's been pointed out elsewhere, but Rage Against the Machine = Sony/BMG, and X-Factor/Simon Cowell = Sony/BMG... the man wins every time, silly student japers!

also rage against the machine suck

"Killing in the Name" is currently number one on iTunes, with Lady GaGa #2 and Joe #3. But then people spending £4 on the one single Tesco stock all year is more X Factor winner territory, so they won't be too worried.

But there's not exactly a successful history of nobheads/Radio 1 DJs trying to game the chart like this so I doubt anything will happen.

I remember a half-assed attempt by Chris Moyles to get "Honey to the B" to enter on downloads, which seemed to succeed (number 17 I think), but the higher-up positions are another story, I guess.

group is actually 700,000+ members

i will be surprised if this does not succeed

but Rage Against the Machine = Sony/BMG, and X-Factor/Simon Cowell = Sony/BMG... the man wins every time, silly student japers!

no-one actually gives a fuck about this, they just like the whole 'let's make a difference to something we actually understand and can be amused by instead of actual political causes' thing. and 'fuck off cowell' yes.

Here's the quote, nicked from NME News:

"If there's a campaign, and I think the campaign's aimed directly at me, it's stupid," he said in a press conference in London today (10), reports The Independent.

Cowell went on to suggest that the campaign was unfairly being detrimental to the contestants in the show rather than harming him. "Me having a Number One record at Christmas is not going to change my life particularly," he said. "It does however change these guys' lives and we put this opportunity there so that the winner of The X Factor gets the chance of having a big hit record.

"I think it's quite a cynical campaign geared at me which is actually going to spoil the party for these three (contestants). I also think it's incredibly dismissive of the people who watch and enjoy the show… to treat our audiences as if they're stupid and I don't like that."

group is actually 700,000+ members

i will be surprised if this does not succeed

this does not automatically translate to 700,000+ sales though

It's not "cynical" but duh it's totally about being dismissive of people who like the show. Like RatM have got 700,000 fans in the UK. So this is nicely dismissive of them too, really, in the same way that the tossers who voted lol Rick Astley for the MTV Video Awards or whatever it was didn't give a toss about him or his music. Good work all round.

it's just a bit of fun

Like those Vodafone ads

Like RatM have got 700,000 fans in the UK

If you included ppl who liked them when they were younger and are ripe for a wee nostalgia trip that doesn't seem like too outlandish a figure

I'd say it seems quite low.

this does not automatically translate to 700,000+ sales though

never said it did, but even if a tenth of the group's members buy it i would've thought that would be enough for a decent chart placing even at this time of year. i would expect at least a third of the people on the group to buy it tho, and a few more who probably feel more embarrassed about joining such an fb group than actually buying the song

From my understanding of record sales I do think 700,000's a mad figure.

But y'know, get enough beer in me and I'll go nuts to "Killing in the Name". It's not about the respective merits of the records, which is what gets my back up about this.

i remember when the song was first played on the Top 40 show having entered the charts, they failed to bleep out the "fuck"s.

If (big if) this looks close to happening, bet you there will be a disqualification on some technicality...

Cowell could buy thousands of copies so that it gets dq'd for irregular sales pattern

Wouldn't put it past him.

alt: He obtains the rights and withdraws it.

Or, actually, sets it up on itunes as a free download, thereby disqualifying it.

In whose interest (and arguably it isn't in Cowell's interest) would the chart be "fixed"? I mean come on.

Singles sales in and of themselves aren't a big deal. Cowell must be quite happy that this story is generating interest for X Factor when for the last few years it's been so obvious what wd be number 1. As has been noted elsewhere, Joe doesn't seem that likely to succeed as a chart pop star anyway, so big whoop if he goes in at number 2. The publicity will be more immense than ever.

Treating this whole thing as some kind of low-brainer Culture Wars event is what brings the depression. It reminds me of being 14 and sneering at the kids who like all that chart shit. The RatM campaign is that, plus Flashmob mentality. I'm siding with the people who just wanna buy a song they like, not STICK IT TO THE MAN by buying his product.

They should do an X-Factor special where Cowell and Zach De La Rocha sit in a vat of money laughing and masturbating

At least last years "protest" resulted in LenCohen getting even more money...

xpost

Trying to work Susan Boyle in there somewehre but Not Suitable for Brain tbh

I enjoy Leonard Cohen's work but feel no concern for whether he gets more money for his accountant to spunk up the wall while Len's playing at monks.

The dude running the "HMHB for Xmas number 2" group doesn't seem to realise that none of the 200-odd people in that group are actually going to bother buying a HMHB Mp3

this does not automatically translate to 700,000+ sales though

folks seem to be buying multiple copies. which seems a tad excessive.

one of the two facebook friends o'mine who have joined the group is not a student japery-type dude at all. i think he's a floor manager at tk maxx. 'killing in the name of' is the type of shit we used to blast, so anyway i think it'd be not unamusing if ratm won.

t's not about the respective merits of the records, which is what gets my back up about this.

sez who?

i was agin lenny winning because that song is a fucking downer i don't want on my tv.

In whose interest (and arguably it isn't in Cowell's interest) would the chart be "fixed"? I mean come on.
Singles sales in and of themselves aren't a big deal.

i think you underestimate how much Cowell does give a shit about being #1. look at Westlife - everything was engineered around them trying to break The Beatles record, at a time where it was still possible to have done this. they had to be the first official downloads chart #1. plus the very idea of Cowell/Syco acts routinely topping the charts at the end/start of years which didn't occur until the pop idol/syco tv era.

singles sales actually are a big deal again now that download sales are starting to match and even outstrip 90s CD sales...if only for an elite group (ie the kinds of acts Cowell wants/creates).

not that i think he would actually "rig" it in the conventional sense

The dude running the "HMHB for Xmas number 2" group doesn't seem to realise that none of the 200-odd people in that group are actually going to bother buying a HMHB Mp3

This ^^ I only joined it as a lol at my friends joining the RATM group, and I assume this is likely the case for most of the members...

I liked Raw Patrick's "X FACTOR WINNER FOR XMAS NUMBER 1" status update best tbh.

"I enjoy Leonard Cohen's work but feel no concern for whether he gets more money for his accountant to spunk up the wall while Len's playing at monks."

Yeah, fuck him for getting fleeced by someone he trusted and needing to rebuild his retirement fund.

I like RATM, pretty unapologetically if somewhat nostalgically. it would briefly bring a smile to my face if they had the xmas no.1.

don't care anywhere near enough about it to actually spend money on it though. I already have this song. why would I buy it again just to piss off simon cowell? he barely even exists.

xpost

I didn't say fuck him, I said it wasn't my concern. I know the trials of wealthy pop stars are just as hard as everybody else's trials, I guess it's just compassion fatigue.

(obviously lenny len >>>>> ratm, but im talking about appropriate listening contexts n shit here.)

It's disappointing that last years "Let's pick a song that should be more known than it is" historical choice was a one-off.

Back to the "Wow, that song previously sung by HanMont is a gem of the sort of thing we do here" um, valance.

i'd probably feel a bit more annoyed if this had happened last year as there would've been inevitable "racists!" carping

"Let's pick a song that should be more known than it is"

JESUS WAS A CROSSMAKER FOR XMAS NO. 1

xpost, I can appreciate that but for me Cohen was the first time that I could buy an expensive concert ticket and feel I was helping someone get his finances back on track. (Obviously other artists play comeback tours because they need the £££ too, but not for such dramatic reasons.) So when Hallelujah was everywhere I thought, y'know, good for him.

Well, it did sort-of happen last year (the competing song made number 2) and there was no "racists" carping.

(politics-wise, ratm are no more or less ludicrous than scritti politti, public enemy, the pop group, etc.)

music-wise is possibly a different story

anyone on this thread actually bought it?

Ever since it came out people have gone "haw haw, it sounds like a kid refusing to tidy his room", but the sheer bleeding obviousness of that line is fantastic. In the context of their other songs, it takes that basic, apolitical, adolescent rebel instinct and hooks it up to bigger issues - it's like a protest-song gateway drug. The anti-Cowell campaign, unfortunately, divorces it from all that and reduces it to adolescent petulance again. Not wanting to take this whole Facebook campaign too seriously - it just doesn't do the song any favours.

I dunno, for all when I try to summon up the song from memory, it blends seamlessly into Lily Allen's "Fuck you (fuck youuu) fuck you very very muu-uu-uuuch"

I'm tempted to buy the Joe single just so RATM doesn't make it no. 1. Who's with me? I can't stand that song.

music-wise is possibly a different story

music-wise it pisses on the x-factor song from a height. it's one of those songs like 'come on eileen' that it's hard to resist imo.

i might buy both RATM and Joe just to piss everybody off. tis the season.

SD1000

21 Dec 2009, 12:40AM

Good article, but really Charlie, 'Killing in the Name' is not a good song.

He doesn't sound pissed off at all - he "howls" the refrain in tune with the music for christ's sake!

^is this rockist or anti-rockist? Advice plz

SD1000, more like sb x 1000

It sounds like Louis Walsh!

AWWW!HHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

― conner Smedley (gsc660), Friday, 31 January 2003 23:38 (6 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Nice howling, here's to your Xmas no. 1 next year!

werewolves of london for xmas number one!

lol i'd actually consider getting behind that one. but it'll never happen, so i can say that.

Dude essentially beat Cowell in a marketing competition, so fair enuff.

A wee bit of me hopes Cowell offers him a highly paid job to test his anti-X-Factor convictions.

What's next for Rage Against The Machine fans?

There's been a (small) protest in Parliament Square this morning - agianst what I'm not sure. Their sign says "RAGE AGAINST COP 15" (I think) with the COP15 bit inside a left-pointing arrow. Anyway, they've been blasting out RATM songs - mostly "Killing In The Name" and "Bullet In The Head" - all morning.

What hath Zack wrought?

COP15 was the Copenhagen conference. If people are going to go out and protest against the useless outcome of that, then I'm all for it. Hope there's going to be a wider protest than just the one under the RATM banner though.

"RAGE AGAINST COP 15"

Yeah, cop N. Hagen.

good luck uk

cheers

Onimo's Christmas wish comes true...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/rockandpopmusic/6855268/X-Factor-Simon-Cowell-offers-Christmas-number-one-couple-a-job.html

haha oh shit hope they take it and he gotchas their rockist credentials and tells them to fuck off

oh, they turned him down. Shoulda read before posting.

In other news Zack de la Rocha has agreed to be a judge on Strictly Come Dancing.

I'd take a job at SyCo.

http://www.filmforum.org/films/fallen/fallenhead.jpg

http://www.joemcelderry.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=3a7321c7354fb151942ace1261cda19b&topic=1172.15..

posts by 'admin' on here are things of wonder

Admin

It does look very much like rage have won. Betting odds and the way they cheated last night.

I will make 2 points.

1 its against chart rules what they have done, so its possible the charts can just wipe out so many thousand of their bulk buying or just kick them out for cheating and manipulating the vote.

2 if Joe has come second he will still have sold around 500,000 copies of his single, he will have gained a lot of exposure, and he will have only been beaten by the biggest load of crap ever in the charts.

The exposure Joe will have had over this money cannot buy. He wont lose any fans over this and he may gain more.

No point being sad or upset. General disorder, chaos, anarchy and people who bully and hate to get their own way beating Joe... It isnt Joes, yours or my fault.

Lets hope the Chart company sling RATM out. Their behaviour from start to finish is disgusting and those behind the campaign deserve to be brought to task for public order offences. If they dont they are allowing bulk buying and also sanctioning this countrys neanderthals to just do what they like when they dont like something. I dont like that future at all.

chinatown.jpg

sanctioning this countrys neanderthals to just do what they like when they dont like something

confusing "do" with "buy", easily done.

“Rage Against the Machine is honored to have been drafted by this historic grassroots campaign to make our song ‘Killing in the Name’ the No. 1 song on the UK Christmas Week pop chart. This is a huge victory by and for fans of real music and we extend our heartfelt thanks to every fan and freedom fighter who helped make our anthem of defiance and rebellion the Anarchy Christmas Miracle of 2009.

“As promised we will play a free concert in the UK in celebration of this incredible upset victory over the heavily favored X-Factor single. We are also pleased that so much money has been raised for homeless charity Shelter and are happy to donate as well to aid this important cause. While there are many lessons that can be drawn from this historic upset, the main one is this: that ordinary people, banding together in solidarity, can change ANYTHING, be it the pop charts or the world.”

I haven't been at all invested in who went to number one, really not fussed either way, but the posts from 'Admin' have made me so happy that RATM beat Joe.

Key word "as it stands"

The charts will have been contacted by the goverment and ordered to make Joe number 1

or public order could just have been destroyed for life in this country.

sorry if someone posted that. this thread is long.

"While there are many lessons that can be drawn from this historic upset, the main one is this: that ordinary people, banding together in solidarity, can change ANYTHING, be it the pop charts or... um, the pop charts!”

.. for at least 1 week. Or is that "at most" ?

didn't realise this Jon Morter guy tried to run the same scheme last year with Rick Astley's 'Never Gonna Give You Up'

First they ignore you, then you win.

the REET PETITE / jackie wilson claymation video clip was first shown on ths: http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/301729 'video jukebox'
an all night seven hour marathon / history of video clips with self conatined segements from directors like winner and temple and pop stars like bowie and had narration/ links by john peel and john walters.
we've talked about it on ilx before i'm sure but it introduced me to the cure, talking heads and donald fagen among others. this was in the days when even a late night bbc2 show would get 3 million viewers so it was a hugely influential bit of telly back in the day.

why am i not that surprised at all :

http://www.2-4-7-music.com/news/news-story.asp?ID=2840

i read that with a vindictive grin

Sony did 9/11

Has the music industry been fixed yet? I haven't been paying enough attention...

define the word 'fixed' ?

to influence the actions, outcome, or effect of by improper or illegal methods [the race had been fixed]

looking at elvis's only other post on this thread i'm not sure he meant it like that

re: fallen idol
BAINES! BAINES! BAINES!

sorry.

popjustice lulz

http://www.popjustice.com/images/stories/j/joestoolpigeon.jpg

Surprised by how happy I was by the RATM result, if only because Simon Cowell's sense of entitlement over the X-Factor's right to the Christmas number one every single year, no matter how bad the pop star or lazy the record, was so enraging.

Hopefully this will inspire some actual pop stars to try and beat them next year. It felt like everyone basically stopped trying for the last few years.

Yeah noone was willing to take x-factor singles on in previous years.
Cowell might try to get revenge on the "biased" BBC though by having the X-Factor final on Xmas Day. ITV usually doesn't care about ratings at xmas leaving the BBC to dominate but after getting 19m viewers for the final they might just move the final to dominate Xmas day TV instead. Prob a lot more money via advertisements in that plus higher viewing figures since most people stay in on Xmas day.
But then again i don't watch ITV and their bad diet of soaps and reality tv anyway.

Aye, I can see all X Factor judges giving up their Christmas Days to sit in a studio making Simon more money. Would it really get more viewers live on Christmas Day - wasn't it one of the (if not THE) most-viewed shows of the year anyway?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/events/ragefactor/

The celebration party!

Free tickets, register, blah blah, etc...

There's no gesture so radical that it cannot be recouped by Reggie twatting Yates.

oh fucking hell this is a hundred yards from my house

Look at it as a business opportunity.

40,000 punters, what are you going to sell them?

"Everybody Hurts" t-shirts.