Rage Against the Machine wins UK’s Christmas No 1
This just made Christmas!!!
After a Facebook campaign against Simon Cowell’s chart domination, music fans celebrate their victory.
In recent years, it had become as predictable as elections in North Korea – singer wins X Factor, singer’s debut single goes to No 1. So when Joe McElderry won the TV talent contest, he was no doubt confident he would celebrate Christmas at the top of the charts.
Alas for the 18-year-old from South Shields, it wasn’t to be: a song almost his own age denied him the top spot after a successful online campaign.
Killing In The Name, an expletive-heavy rock song first released in 1992 by the Californian rock band Rage Against the Machine, won the battle for Christmas top spot on the basis of downloads only. It sold about 500,000 copies last week, about 50,000 more than The Climb, McElderry’s earnest ballad.
But arguably the real victor here was a rock fan from Essex who started a Facebook group a month ago with the (then) pie-in-the-sky idea of usurping the X Factor winner from the no 1 slot.
Jon Morter, 35, a part-time rock DJ and logistics expert from South Woodham Ferrers, near Chelmsford, decided it would be a bit of a giggle to start a campaign to encourage people to buy a record with pretty much the opposite vibe to the X Factor winner’s ballad.
Morter said: “I think it just shows that in this day and age, if you want to say something, then you can – with the help of the internet and social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. If enough people are with you, you can beat the status quo.”
