Hurray for small victories
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It might not be a big deal in the grand scheme of things, but seeing Rage Against the Machine take the Christmas number one spot last month put a smile on a lot of faces. Even I supported the campaign, buying copies from various stores, despite already having owned the album for many years. It's not that I have anything against their opponent—I've still not even heard 'his' song—but I believe the right song won.
For those blissfully unaware of the whole charade, the story began when an unassuming couple, Jon and Tracy Morter, started a Facebook campaign asking people in the UK to download Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name to make it the Christmas number one, thus keeping Simon Cowell's latest X Factor product out of that coveted top spot. Despite initially being laughed off as a silly joke, the campaign won.
The Christmas number one is hailed as quite the prize in Britain. Several times a suitably festive song has made it to the top spot, making for a memorable occasion. In recent years, however, the position has been the exclusive domain of whichever act has won a televised karaoke contest. There is no competition anymore. You won't find any Christmas songs in the running. The whole thing has been paid for months in advance by a very intelligent PR machine to ensure their brainwashed automaton consumer audience buys their product exactly as they've been told to. This year, however, someone put a spanner in the works.
Rage Against the Machine's Killing in the Name is hardly a Christmas song—far from it. It's an anti-establishment protest song, and that is presumably why it was selected over so many other potentials to represent this campaign. Should a proper Christmas song have been chosen for the campaign instead? Probably. Would it have had the same impact? Probably not. The purpose here was to end the pop factory's run of domination and that particular song sent a loud and clear message.
The hypocritical element to this campaign is that in taking on an industry that tells people what to buy, the campaign had to tell people to buy something else instead. It's an irony that wasn't lost on everyone, but unfortunately it was the nature of the battle. A further irony is that the same record label owned (and profited from) both records, but that wasn’t really what it was about either.
The big corporate machines behind the music industry will continue to do things they way they did prior to this campaign. Shows like the X Factor will continue to churn out sing-along pop stars for their five minutes of fame, the general public will lap it up willingly and the money will keep rolling in. Next year they’re almost guaranteed to have another Christmas number one on the grounds that a campaign like this cannot be repeated (there will undoubtedly be several attempts next year, which in themselves will split the supporters to a point where none take a clear lead). The industry always wins. But this wasn't about winning a war. It was about winning one important battle. Sometimes the small victories are the most fulfilling.