Rage Against The Machine U.K. Christmas number one – thanks to Facebook
Rage Against The Machine’s Killing In The Name has this evening been announced as the Christmas number one in the U.K. How did that happen? By a combination of Facebook, word of mouth and people power.
I’m not sure how it is in the United States, or any other country for that matter, but in the U.K. there’s a tradition of the Christmas music charts being the biggest of the year. There’s a kudos attached to being Christmas number one, but a kudos that has been somewhat usurped in recent years by Simon Cowell’s manufactured pop factory.
In the run up to Christmas, The X Factor (the British equivalent of American Idol) whittles 100,000 entrants down to just a handful of passable singers. The final is held the week before Christmas, and the winner releases a cover which is guaranteed to hit the number one spot just in time for Christmas. At least that is what has happened for the four years prior to 2009.
This year, and I can hardly believe it myself, Rage Against The Machine are Christmas number one in the U.K. with Killing In The Name. And they secured the tops spot thanks to a campaign started on Facebook.
Jon Morter started a Facebook group called RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE FOR CHRISTMAS NO.1. It started fairly small but gradually grew until it reached its current membership level of just under one million.
The aim of the group was simple – to get Killing In The Name to Christmas number one ahead of The X Factor winner, who just happened to be one Joe McElderry. Members were asked to download the track between Dec. 13 and Dec. 19, and 500,000 of them did so, resulting in Rage Against The Machine hitting number one today.
Morter reacted to the news by telling NME:
Fuck me it’s crazy I can’t believe it. It’s been absolutely mad this whole thing. To be Christmas Number one is insane isn’t it? It just goes to show if you use social networking in the right way you can do it.
And he’s right. This was social networking used in exactly the right way. It took a small, grassroots campaign and turned it into something massive and global. And once the press got interested the battle lines were drawn.
Killing In The Name may well be just about the least Christmasy song in the world. But it doesn’t matter because it being number one means more than a pop cover or a novelty record. It means that Simon Cowell cannot fix the Christmas charts. What’s more, it means that not all Facebook groups are pointless tosh – some have the power to make a real difference.
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December 21st, 2009
Thank god we have some real music for Xmas number 1, just goes to show how powerful social media has become. There’s another interesting article about it here http://bit.ly/8UPCgV
January 30th, 2011
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