I'm surprised but very glad Rage won - I did indeed buy it... twice. I wasn't going to, as the charts are irrelevant and have been for years now, but these factors combined to change my mind:
1. The Shelter link. Buy Rage, donate to Shelter. Brilliant way to justify buying something I've owned for years, and at last check over £30,000 had been raised for one of the best causes in the country.
2. Amazon sales count to the chart. 29p download? Why not?
3. The X Factor song. Bland, uninspiring, run of the mill cack cover of one of the worst female artists of the decade. None of the other songs from X Factor/Pop Idol etc have ever angered me so much.
4. Simon Cowell's ego. "It's all about me. It's out to hurt me." His dismissal of anyone who doesn't buy into his music is a business philosophy "This campaign is stupid. It is cynical." He then claims he and his machine have 'done the charts a favour' in recent years. Sorry, what? The X Factor is a 16 week long marketing campaign for the winner's song. It cruises to the top spot every year, crushing what little competition there is (which is generally none, because everyone has accepted it's not wise to release that week.). No Simon, what you have helped do is wreck popular music in the UK. This year is the first real interest the charts have had in ages, and the closest competition between two songs since the Spice Girls in 1998.
4. The general attitude of people. "Oh it'd be cool/nice/amazing if it happened. But it won't, so don't bother trying." That kind of defeatist attitude really irritated me, so I joined in the campaign in the hope that, even if Rage only made top 2-3, it would still make the point that people can achieve against long odds if they make even a smidgeon of effort.
5. The Sun. Yesterday's front page headline: we played Joe McElderry RATM for the first time and he hated it. He reacted by screaming how he hated it and insulted people who like it. Oh, and threw darts at a board with Zack de la Rocha's face on it. That drove me nuts. That isn't news or even average journalism. It is flat out sensationalism and, frankly, lying. A boy who's never heard of the band, let alone the song, has a spare dart set hanging around depicting them? For fuck's sake. Grow up - any sympathy for him losing the annual non-contest is obliterated by that immature reaction in my opinion.
I would also like this to show that getting a no.1 single is not some be-all and end-all of what constitutes success in the music industry. Joe - who I freely admit is decent singer, not my cup of tea in the slightest though - will work now on an album and a tour, and those things will show whether he is a musical success or not. Not his image or the false achievement of the Christmas no.1 Simon Cowell spends so much money on purchashing every year.
Two other things:
-Cowell and Rage are both owned by Sony, yes. But how some people can construe that to mean Cowell gets money from Killing in the Name is beyond me. He doesn't own the label and so is not entitled to proceeds.
-Rage will be donating their proceeds to a UK charity that aids young people in developing their musical talents and careers, not Shelter. Tom Morello has also hinted they may play a one-off UK show and income from that would also go to charity.
