Rage Against What You Don't Understand

To follow up on my previous article, I want to talk about the anti-X-Factor campaigns this Christmas. The most prominent of these is probably the Rage For Christmas No. 1 Campaign, an attempt to propel what is, admittedly, an absolute 'choon' in Killing In The Name Of to the top spot on December 25. This campaign is a prime example of how a mostly mature and deeply political set of lyrics - "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" - can be easily co-opted for the most banal and childish purposes. Despite my general disdain for the NME, I will expand on some of the very good points made by Luke Lewis in his blog about the holes in this campaign , primarily these:

RATM are already a world famous band with their fair share of corporate affiliation. Anyone else remember their time with the WWF, now WWE? Furthermore, they are a Sony act so Simon Cowell, whose label Syco is a Sony subsidiary, probably benefits from their popularity anyway. Even if he doesn't, the idea that this is somehow a drive for independent music is firmly quashed by putting money in the coffers of a major label. Some people are attempting to get around this by claiming that Rage are donating the proceeds to charity, but I can find absolutely no record of this online. The closest I have found is that the Facebook group encourages people to also donate to Shelter, a worthy cause, but hardly cutting off the money supply chain to Sony.

As I and Luke both mentioned, Killing In The Name is a song about racism, murder, fear, hatred, authoritarian government and police brutality, all far more serious issues than X-Factor's dominance over the music industry. That this song was chosen for the campagin belies not just an ignorance of their Sony affiliations, the kind of band RATM are and how the music industry works, but also an unhealthy disrespect for the original subject matter.

The Christmas no. 1 is rarely a thing of much import. In his blog reply to Luke, the horrifically misguided Tim Chester, restoring my high disregard for the NME, can pluck only 5 examples from the last 60 odd years to support his counterclaim, one of which is the Beatles I Want To Hold Your Hand, surely one of the worst lyrics ever written by any famous band, let alone one so influential. He also ignores 4 other good songs in that time frame - Moon River, Return To Sender, Green Green Grass Of Home and Hello Goodbye - and the many and various novelty records such as Ernie The Fastest Milkman In The West, Bob The Builder, Renee and Renato and regular Cliff Richard entries. The point being that even if Joe's version of the Climb were not a good song in its own right, and far superior to Miley's version (which it thankfully is, so I can finally listen to that song without having to hear her pathetic whiny voice), there is no great Christmas tradition being broken here. Just like any week in the charts, sometimes there are good songs, sometimes not. Far more important is which songs stand the test of time: the list of Christmas no. 2s has many classic Christmas tunes - Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), All I Want For Christmas Is You, Last Christmas, Fairytale of New York - and general good tunes which have lasted.

Which brings me on to my next point. The charts are ephemeral. Consistent radio play over time is far more important. There have been a bunch of great songs released under the X-Factor banner - Bad Boys, Everbody In Love, Bleeding Love, Leona's cover of Run and this year's charity single (You Are Not Alone) to name a few. Bleeding Love is the only one of these even remotely old enough to make the case, but the fact that it is still played regularly on radio shows it to be a good, or at least popular song. In my opinion, only the good winners from X-Factor and other talent shows survive. When's the last time you heard from Leon Jackson, Shayne Ward, Steve Brookstein or Michelle McManus? They were all shit, and so they've all fallen by the wayside. As a friend of mine pointed out, shows like this are a giant A&R meeting with a significant buying section of the British public. But it is only a portion, it is not the majority, and it does not wield ultimate control. Sadly, some people feel disenfranchised by the show, or feel they have better/different taste than than those people who do vote, but that doesn't invalidate what's being achieved. Saying you don't like something because it's from X-Factor is absurd - if it's a good song (which the Climb is), it's a good song, regardless of its source. Art and the artist are always linked, but never the same.

I think there is a problem with people misinterpreting what the X-Factor should be about, as I said in the previous post, but I genuinely think if there were a good Christmas song contender and the X-Factor song weren't very good, the better song would win. Last year, Alexandra's Hallelujah was up against Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah - both versions are bad, neither a patch on the original Leonard Cohen live take. 2007, Katie Melua raining on Eva Cassidy's parade with the Wonderful World duet lost out to the utterly awful Leon Jackson version of When You Believe. 2006, Leona's Moment Like This rightfully beat out the turgid piece of shit that is Take That's Patience (which marked their disastrous reformation). 2005, the lyrically suspect and morally reprehensible JCB song lost out to Shayne Ward's ghastly That's My Goal.

So recent form very much shows that X-Factor shit beats non X-Factor shit, and that good songs beat bad songs. But 2004 had 2 good songs - Ronan Keating's duet Yusuf Islam (previously Cat Stevens) on Father and Song vs. the Band Aid 20 cover of Do They Know It's Christmas - and charity won out. 2003 was again a good double header, and although I personally prefer the Darkness with Christmas Time (Don't Let The Bells End), I don't begrudge Michael Andrews and Gary Jules with Mad World. 2002, 2001 and so on - the results speak for themselves. The last time a great song was stuck in the number 2 spot by a shit song was over 20 years ago, in 1987, when the Pogues' Fairytale of New York lost out to the Pet Shop Boys' unabahsed mauling of the Elvis classic Always On My Mind.

In the end, opposing X-Factor on principle is ridiculous because, as I said in the previous post, there's nothing wrong with the principle of X-Factor, only, arguably, things wrong with its execution. I don't mind people paying money for Killing In The Name, because it's a great song. But they should do it for the right reasons.