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RatM has England's Top Christmas single

post #1 of 41
12/18/09 at 10:23pm
Thread Starter 
This is great.

Quote:
It might be hard for American music fans to comprehend, but the annual race to land the #1 Christmas single in England is a seriously major deal. And typically, the song that wins out is a sappy, cloying ballad full of warm fuzzies that everyone can feel good about at this most stressful time of year.

But Rage Against the Machine have tossed a giant Molotov cocktail into the works this year, igniting a public feud with the man the New Musical Express dubbed "The Grinch" in its current Christmas issue, "American Idol" baddie Simon Cowell.

The "Idol" judge, who is also the man behind England's popular "The X Factor" reality talent competition, has been promoting a vanilla cover of the Miley Cyrus ballad "The Climb" by that show's recent winner, Joe McElderry, as this year's feel-good holiday song. But an underground guerrilla campaign by Rage fans to push the band's 1992 musical manifesto "Killing in the Name" past McElderry's song has become headline news this week in the U.K.

The NME reported that the tension was upped another notch on Thursday morning, when Rage performed live on the air from Los Angeles and, despite promising producers of BBC's 5Live show that they would not sing the curse words in "Killing in the Name," dropped four F-bombs before having their performance faded out.

During an accompanying interview, Rage guitarist Tom Morello slammed Cowell and the campaign to get the "X Factor" winner's song to #1 and said the Internet campaign "tapped into the silent majority of the people in the U.K. who are tired of being spoon-fed one schmaltzy ballad after another." Cowell has been adamant about his disdain for the campaign to hoist Rage into the #1 spot, calling it "stupid," "cynical" and "very Scrooge." In an interview, Cowell lamented, "Joe doesn't deserve to be stuck in the middle of this. A campaign aimed at harming his chart position is unnecessary."

To date, former Beatle Paul McCartney and the Foo Fighters' have spoken out in support of Rage taking the Xmas title, with Grohl pledging to buy a copy of "Killing" in order to help it reach the finish line ahead of McElderry on Sunday. McElderry admitted this week that he has never heard the Rage anthem, or any Rage song.

As of Thursday afternoon, "Killing" was leading "The Climb" by nearly 9,000 copies. MTV U.K. reported that Rage said they will donate any profits from the sales of "Killing" to charity.
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post #2 of 41
12/19/09 at 6:52am
Bought my copy on Wednesday.
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post #3 of 41
12/19/09 at 7:04am
I'm fully aware that Sony gets paid either way and I'm well past my adoration of RATM but I really hope you guys pull it off. Reminds me of Lordi winning the Eurovision contest we hosted. The site of our Minister of Culture giving the award to Lordi, in full make-up, instead of one of the eurotrash pop ballads the media have been pushing was very worth the indignity of voting in a fucking Eurovision contest.

Plus just like Killing In The Name, the song was just better. A Miley Cyrus cover from an X-Factor winner. Blech.
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post #4 of 41
12/19/09 at 7:56am
Kudos I guess.

Regardless of their politics, I still love RATM. EE and BOLA were, and still are some of the better hard rock albums to date.
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post #5 of 41
12/19/09 at 9:56am
Quote:
The NME reported that the tension was upped another notch on Thursday morning, when Rage performed live on the air from Los Angeles and, despite promising producers of BBC's 5Live show that they would not sing the curse words in "Killing in the Name," dropped four F-bombs before having their performance faded out.
Uncensored video here.

The hilarious part is in the actual faded out radio broadcast, where in unintentional grand British irony, the DJ says "We asked them not to do that, but they did."
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post #6 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:18am
I kind of love it. Even Stephen Fry, the lord of Twitter, is in on this.
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post #7 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:26am
Didn't I hear something about Paul McCartney supporting Rage as well? Something about that pleases me and pisses me off in equal measure.
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post #8 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:39am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Justin Clark View Post
Didn't I hear something about Paul McCartney supporting Rage as well?
Yeah, possibly in the quoted article in the original post, even!
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post #9 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:53am
fucking awesome
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post #10 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:53am
Expecting people to read things thoroughly before posting? How presumptuous of you, sir.
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post #11 of 41
12/19/09 at 10:59am
Simon Cowell is doing this big thing about these American rockstars bullying a poor 18 year old kid. I fully expect the X-Factor fans to do a mass purchase today. I hope RatM gets it, just because the money is going to really help some charities, and their is precedence (Mad World for one), but I think Britain's natural hubris towards the succesful may be tempered by the near pavlovian response to the X-Factor.
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post #12 of 41
12/19/09 at 12:29pm
Yeah, I think you're right Spike.

There was a really interesting article in the Manchester Evening News with Tom Hingley of Inspiral Carpets fame saying the good thing about all this is that it calls into question these acts' right to be in the charts and how important it is for performers to build up followers by playing clubs and bars before hitting it big. He sounded really angry about the fact that there is no serious discussion about any of this, that its a shortcut to fame for moderately talented people and fully supports the blockade of the number one slot by something of the ilk of Rage.
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post #13 of 41
12/19/09 at 12:37pm
Nevermind.
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post #14 of 41
12/19/09 at 4:19pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
Simon Cowell is doing this big thing about these American rockstars bullying a poor 18 year old kid.
Yeah, I saw Cowell saying it's "cynical" and "Scrooge."

Personally, I think trotting out over-produced pap that has little-to-no artistic value to make scads of money by capitalizing on the purported celebration of the birth of a commie/hippie religious figure is cynical, but that's just me.
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post #15 of 41
12/20/09 at 8:42am
Cowell, who has made a career out of berating powerless people in public, should shut his mouth.
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post #16 of 41
12/20/09 at 8:47am
What makes Macca's support so awsome is that he was on the Final of the XFactor last week. He got some airtime (not that he needs it) and then backs the underdog.
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post #17 of 41
12/20/09 at 10:08am
This is indeed awesome.

Aren't British charts compiled differently than American ones? I seem to remember reading a BBC DJ trying to flout the system similarly by pushing a Billie Piper single, and getting the single all the way into the Top 5...
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post #18 of 41
12/20/09 at 12:30pm
RATM can shut the fuck up. And I say that as someone who was a massive fan in my teen years.

A lame, utterly pointless publicity stunt and predictable antics from the band (if they're even still considered one) who has always squandered their fame and attempts at raising awareness on self-indulgent causes. Simon fucking Cowell? For a group that considers themselves so prolific and influential, where the fuck were the attempts at publicity and raising of public awareness when Iran fell apart in the aftermath of their election, or other such tragedies?

Fuck Rage Against the Machine.
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post #19 of 41
12/20/09 at 12:35pm
Someone has on his serious pants.
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post #20 of 41
12/20/09 at 12:40pm
Benign outrage is serious business.
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post #21 of 41
12/20/09 at 12:55pm
I'm pretty sure this wasn't launched by RATM but by, oh, the internet?
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post #22 of 41
12/20/09 at 1:46pm
It's over apparently. RATM by about 52000 copies according to some leaks. Well done, internet.
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post #23 of 41
12/20/09 at 2:13pm
I may have come off a little bit harshly.

It's just frustrating to see a band that professes itself as being THE political band - a band who's bullshit I bought into as a kid - go after such an easy, irrelevant target like Simon Cowell. It's Christmas time, there's a lot going on in the world, and the band that still holds a lot of clout with their audience chooses not to do something helpful and constructive. Instead, they do something that boosts their sales and puts them back in the spotlight for a few minutes.
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post #24 of 41
12/20/09 at 2:56pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by D.T. View Post
I may have come off a little bit harshly.

It's just frustrating to see a band that professes itself as being THE political band - a band who's bullshit I bought into as a kid - go after such an easy, irrelevant target like Simon Cowell. It's Christmas time, there's a lot going on in the world, and the band that still holds a lot of clout with their audience chooses not to do something helpful and constructive. Instead, they do something that boosts their sales and puts them back in the spotlight for a few minutes.
Firstly, this isn't something RatM orchestrated - I think it's less about the politics of the band than the chorus of "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"
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post #25 of 41
12/20/09 at 3:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chavez View Post
Firstly, this isn't something RatM orchestrated - I think it's less about the politics of the band than the chorus of "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!"
That's a bingo!
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post #26 of 41
12/20/09 at 3:18pm
Yeah, I was at one of the RATM reunion shows 2 years ago and it's kind of interesting to watch a bunch of assholes yell in unison when prompted "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" but goddamn if it doesn't feel great.
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post #27 of 41
12/20/09 at 3:56pm
Well they did it. Killing in the Name Of is officially our number 1.
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post #28 of 41
12/20/09 at 4:06pm
Good job England!
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post #29 of 41
12/20/09 at 5:56pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ben Thomas View Post
There was a really interesting article in the Manchester Evening News with Tom Hingley of Inspiral Carpets fame saying the good thing about all this is that it calls into question these acts' right to be in the charts and how important it is for performers to build up followers by playing clubs and bars before hitting it big. He sounded really angry about the fact that there is no serious discussion about any of this, that its a shortcut to fame for moderately talented people and fully supports the blockade of the number one slot by something of the ilk of Rage.
He was on the radio here last week saying essentially the same thing. As a lo-fi muso, I naturally agree with him.
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post #30 of 41
12/20/09 at 6:19pm
I can't say it's my favorate Xmnas number one ever but I am very glad that they did it.
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post #31 of 41
12/20/09 at 7:36pm
Great job, England.
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post #32 of 41
12/21/09 at 4:34pm
Awesome.
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post #33 of 41
12/21/09 at 4:40pm
This is awesome. Kudos England. Simons probably not happy. I like that.
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post #34 of 41
12/21/09 at 4:43pm
BTW.

It's BRITAIN not England who are responsible for this. The chart covers Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.

The biggest thing about this is that the single has raised about £80,000 ($150,000) for Shelter, a homeless charity. It's also nice that we've managed to salvage our Christmas number 1 tradition. It used to be an actual race until the X-Factor dominance.
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post #35 of 41
12/21/09 at 4:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
Well they did it. Killing in the Name Of is officially our number 1.
That is so incredibly cool.
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post #36 of 41
12/21/09 at 4:51pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Spike Marshall View Post
BTW.

It's BRITAIN not England who are responsible for this. The chart covers Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland.

The biggest thing about this is that the single has raised about £80,000 ($150,000) for Shelter, a homeless charity. It's also nice that we've managed to salvage our Christmas number 1 tradition. It used to be an actual race until the X-Factor dominance.
Well congrats to all of Britain then. And charity reaping benefits from this makes it all the better.
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post #37 of 41
12/22/09 at 7:15am
Haha, I had to do a little talk about this on national radio this morning. Well done Britain!
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post #38 of 41
12/22/09 at 7:42am
I'm sure Simon Cowell's not really too broken up about this. What was that saying "No such thing as bad publicity?" ....
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post #39 of 41
12/22/09 at 7:43am
P.S Like it was said above, the important thing is that a lot of money was raised for charity, everyone had a bit of fun and in the small scheme of things (never mind the big), no harm done.
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post #40 of 41
12/22/09 at 7:44am
Oh he will be pissed. The Xmas number one has been an unspoken part of winning the X Factor almost since the show began. This is a pretty big kick in the crotch for him, and puts the stink of hasbeen on his new act right out of the gate.

What's doubly amusing is that this X Factor moppet, Joe McElderry, is set to miss out on number one NEXT weekend thanks to his X Factor mentor Cheryl Cole's new single.
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post #41 of 41
12/22/09 at 11:31pm
Nice work.

But Rage Against the Machine? It's awesome for charitiy, but that's just small time thinking. If you really want to kill two birds with one stone. Make a lot of money for charity and give Simon and X-factor the finger. And I mean really give it to 'em.

You need to employ Khia's "My Neck, My Back" as the UK's 2010 #1 holiday single.

I will personally donate $1000 of my own money to make that happen. It would be GLORIOUS!
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