Facebook Campaign Decides UK Christmas Music Charts 362
Posted
by
kdawson
from the rage-against-the-commercialization dept.
from the rage-against-the-commercialization dept.
uglyduckling writes "A grassroots Facebook campaign has pushed the 1990s Rage Against the Machine song 'Killing in the Name Of' to the top of the British music charts for Christmas. The campaign was planned to prevent the X-Factor winner from charting Christmas number one, as has been the case for the past four years. It was supposedly a kick against the commercialism of Christmas and commercial dominance in the music scene, although Rage and the X-Factor winner Joe McElderry were actually signed to the same label. Despite this minor detail, it's interesting to note that this is the first song to reach the number one spot through downloads alone in the UK, and is a testament to the organizational power of social networking sites like Facebook. The Facebook group also asked for donations to charity, and has raised £70,000 for the homeless charity Shelter."
Facebook vs X-Factor (Score:4, Insightful)
Not the same label (Score:5, Insightful)
Rage against the machine are signed to Epic, whereas the X-Factor winners are signed to Syco. Both are owned by Sony, but really ... who cares? This campaign was never about the money, it was about doing something to stop the tediousness of X-Factor chart domination.
It was worth it all, just to hear someone swearing on Radio 5.
Not Facebook - Simon Cowell (Score:5, Insightful)
"a testiment to the organisational power of social networking sites like Facebook"
I think that might be going a bit far. What it is testament to is that we're all fed up of shitty pop.
Previously, we've all been too fragmented, "I don't like shitty pop, but I do like cool jazz" (etc.) so (as with many democratic systems) the thing that the largest people like (which also happens to be the thing the largest number of people also dislike) ends up getting branded "good".
What happened here was that, pretty much by accident, someone found something that everyone sort-of likes (Killing in the name of) and were able to use as a banner behind which to mass to express how much we dislike bloody x-factor. I, myself, have been not buying X-factor records for many years and have had absolutely zero effect on anything, This year I bought two copies of Killing in the name of (I song I like) (and the second one was a mistake, bloody iTunes) and now can delude myself into thinking I might have had some small influence on Simon Cowell.
Next time he's putting together an identikit pop star perhaps he'll pause for a moment and think "Should I make this one staggeringly hopelessly bland? No, I'll raise my game and just make it very bland". Which is, at least, a step in the right direction.
And (back to the point I started with), they tried this game last year, but chose Rick Astley. And even with the "organisational power of social networking sites like Facebook", they failed.
I think Facebook was probably fairly low down the list of causes for this. I think the real things that helped here are:
1) Wide spread public anger
2) Choosing the right song
3) The BBC (where I heard about it)
Summary disingenuous (Score:5, Insightful)
In a way, but it was more the fact that the previous 4 years' Christmas Number Ones had been X-Factor winners. It's slightly disingenuous to say that the Facebook campaign was a "kick against the commercialism of Christmas"...
"Commercial dominance" ever was a factor in the race for christmas number one in the UK, but at least it was a race, not a foregone conclusion. Like when the Spice Girls went up against Chef and his Chocolate Salty Balls. The trend in recent years is for the X-Factor winner (whoever it is, it doesn't matter) to win. This is just a big "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"...music lovers taking back the Christmas #1 slot.
(Either that or it's a cynical ploy by Sony BMG to sell 500,000 records that they wouldn't have sold otherwise...)
Actually, all this shows is how silly charts are (Score:2, Insightful)
It ain't all that hard to upset the charts, it has been done in Holland by "One Day Fly" a comedian and his palls released a song with the clear published goal of getting it on one. And they did.
If you count the actual sales that make up the charts it doesn't take much of a group to make an impact.
And people really like this idea that they are upsetting the powers that be. In this case by showing Sony we won't take their crap, by buying their crap (check the parent label for both bands). In fact what this shows is that the system WORKS. Hype a song to a group and voila, instant hit. RATM is no different then X-Factor in that respect, both are fakes who just fake it to a slightly different audience but are now proven to be manipulated the same way.
Now if you REALLY wanted to show you could change mass marketing, you would have gotten NOBODY to buy ANY song. Because for Sony, the profits are still the same.
Re:Charity (Score:2, Insightful)
are giving the proceeds to Shelter
(They stuck a Shelter link on the Facebook page - not quite the same thing!)
;)
Which is good all the same - but on the wider point of sticking two fingers up to the establishment - it is worth mentioning that Rage Against the Machine are signed to the SAME record label as the X-Factor dude and this 'contest' simply pushed the sales of both singles through the roof thereby lining the pockets of Simon Cowell and Sony BMG! And there is the further question as to whether or not it is more 'anti-establishment' being told what to buy by some a TV offering or some grassroots facebook campaign - I'm sure Che would be happy that the revolution is in safe hands
Re:Vote For Something Serious! (Score:5, Insightful)
>
> That's like totally horrifying.
The difference is that these two songs are polar opposites. When it comes to the General Election, you're voting for one bastard over another bastard, both with essentially the same policies.
Why bother voting when the result is the same?
X Factor is Criminal (Score:5, Insightful)
Purpose is not stated (Score:5, Insightful)
It was supposedly a kick against the commercialism of Christmas and commercial dominance in the music scene
Supposed by whom?
All it was, was a couple of people saying "wouldn't it be cool if {classic rock song with apt band name} were Christmas number one instead of the pappy ballad that's supposedly a foregone conclusion. It was an idea with memetic fitness, so it took off.
Each individual's reason for buying is their own. Whether it's a perceived statement against capitalism, just a kick against the man, or even really liking the song and somehow not already owning a copy.
FWIW, my reason for taking part was that I thought it would be funny and cool if it worked, and the outlay was 29 pence. If it sends a message to Sony that there's good money to be made promoting non-manufactured bands, so much the better.
Re:Actually, all this shows is how silly charts ar (Score:3, Insightful)
what the protest group was trying to do was to stop some bland, middle-of-the-road, one-hit-wonder from getting #1 when it should be going to someone who at least has the where-with-all to write their own goddamn songs.
I agree that the X-Factor effort is bland pap that doesn't deserve to sell (and let's not forget that it *did* sell by the bucket load. This isn't a zero-sum game.)
However I question this fetishisation of acts who write their own material. Writing and performing are orthogonal talents. One person can have both, but having one talent in isolation is not something to be demeaned. Burt Bacharach was a fine songwriter. He sometimes performs them himself, and it's OK, but not that great. Most people would rather hear the Walker Brothers perform "Make It Easy On Yourself" than Bacharach himself.
Before The Beatles it was really quite rare for pop acts to write their own material.
Ask yourself, what would you rather? A great band performing a bad song written by themselves? Or a great band performing a great song written by someone else?
And what would you say to a great songwriter who's a weak performer? Stop writing?
Re:Charity (Score:3, Insightful)
something other than the bland, synthesised crap that we get as a christmas number 1 these last few years
...out of the charts. Though you may not care for the politics at the surface of it, you most certainly are contributing to the campaign in going beyond what anyone could consider a normal music purchase.
Re:Actually, all this shows is how silly charts ar (Score:2, Insightful)
THEY LIKE IT
WRONG they buy it because
1/it's in the charts
2/because they are being brainwashed: the radio turning it 25000 times a day.(and the producers of those shows getting a cut).
Re:Charity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Actually, all this shows is how silly charts ar (Score:3, Insightful)
Being "brainwashed" into liking something doesn't negate you liking it. In fact, it entails it.
Re:Charity (Score:5, Insightful)
Slight nitpick, but although there may have been no materials cost, don't forgot that Sony would have had to pay for the 1.43 terrabytes (500,000 x 3GB) worth of data that people used to download it.
It may be cheaper than producing and shipping a product, but this is Slashdot and we shouldn't be getting into the mistake of assuming that a digital download doesn't cost anything.
Re:Vote For Something Serious! (Score:4, Insightful)
No, this is not the USA. Labour and the Conservatives are both pretty awful (though at least Labour still has some of the decent old guard in its ranks whereas the Conservatives were pretty much rotten since historical times). Anyway, the point is that you can vote for the Liberal Democrats. They're an order of magnitude better than both Labour and the Conservatives and unlike in the USA, voting for a third party isn't a waste. The Lib Dems have many seats across the UK and enough of a faction in the Houses of Parliament that they have influence. If we'd had a few more Lib Dems, the vote for war on Iraq would actually have been lost. That's what a small difference can make to the outcome of large events. You can even vote Green in the UK because at least they do respectably well at local elections and the European elections.
In short, we are different to the USA. Much of the privately-owned media is trying to push the UK toward the same two-party puppet show that the USA has, but there is a third, less sucky-choice, nonetheless.
Re:Charity (Score:4, Insightful)
Firstly, while it's a little screwed up due to the reason for the sales, it shows that one of their key target market segments within the UK population is actually willing to fork over money on-line for music. More importantly, however, is that it shows that a sizable chunk of this sector of the market is not entirely happy with the bland Pop/R&B fare that sounds exactly the same as the last one and makes up the bulk of their product. That at the very least pokes a few holes in their claims that people are not prepared to pay for music, and very clearly demonstrates that they are not catering for the needs of their target market as well as they could be.
Somehow, I suspect that this little incident is going to get used against them the next time they try making claims about on-line music piracy being responsible for their falling sales and (supposed) fall in profits.
Re:Actually, all this shows is how silly charts ar (Score:5, Insightful)
I used to take this view that people didn't "really" like mainstream film/music/whatever, they only "think they like it".
Then I realised that was the worst kind of condescending attitude. Lots of people like mainstream media output, and that's what makes it mainstream.
Re:X Factor is Criminal (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Vote For Something Serious! (Score:3, Insightful)
The Lib Dems have 62 members in the Houses of Parliament at present and being a power-broker faction, courted by both sides, is a position rich in corruption possibilities. So if they are an order of magnitude better (you exaggerated and misquoted me), then it speaks well of them. Additionally, they have 71 members in the House of Lords, 11 in the European Parliament, 3 on the London Assembly and over 4000 seats at Local Councils. You don't have to have anywhere near a majority just to be a voice in politics, but the more votes you get the louder that voice becomes. For example, the then leader of the Lib Dems Charles Kennedy led the opposition to the Iraq war. The vote was very close and just a handful more Lib Dems in parliament would have changed the outcome.
So your 'personal bet' is that if they got in you'd give them 6 months tops before they were as bad as New Labour or the Conservatives. Well, logic suggests you're better going with the chance of something good than accepting the certainty of something bad. Is it really that much effort to vote? Anyway, their current position as demonstrated already provides enough opportunities for compromise and corruption if need be, but their policies are still very good so far. You only have to look at the differences in individual corruption, e.g. the expenses scandal, between the different parties to develop a higher regard for the Lib Dems than Labour and the Conservatives. (And also unlike the USA, the Conservatives and Labour are not just mild variations on each other - the Conservatives really are much worse, believe it or not).
Re:Not the same label (Score:2, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man [wikipedia.org]
A straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position. To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
Presenting and refuting a weakened form of an opponent's argument can be a part of a valid argument. For example, one can argue that the opposing position implies that at least one other statement - being presumably easier to refute than the original position - must be true. If one refutes this weaker proposition, the refutation is valid and does not fit the above definition of a "straw man" argument. [[citation needed]]
Re:X Factor is Criminal (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Charity (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Charity (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem as I see it isn't so much that the quality music isn't there, because it is. The real problem is that if an act doesn't fit the cookie-cutter Pop/R&B model then they'll get next to no marketing support from the studios, making it all but impossible for potential fans to find them amidst all the dross that's also out there in music's long tail. Frankly, I think that the music industry has got so caught up in its "War against Piracy", that it's forgotten just how wonderfully diverse music can be and that not everyone likes to hear nothing but Pop and R&B.
Re:Charity (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do Christmas trees matter?
Why does tinsel and fairy lights matter?
Why does Morecambe and Wise / Only Fools and Horses / Other christmas specials matter?
Why does the Queen's speech matter?
Why do Christmas crackers and party hats and Christmas pudding matter?
It's all just part of many British people's Christmas traditions. Things that make people feel good this time of year. Not important in the grand scheme of things. But important enough to care and to spend modest amounts of money on.
Re:two parties is a natural evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Many (probably most) democracies in the world have very strong third (fourth, fifth) parties. Many European democracies almost always end up with coalition governments.
Re:Charity (Score:3, Insightful)
Huh? I pay $666 a year for a dedicated server, and for that I get 4TB a *month*
Not all of us would trade our souls for cheap bandwidth.
Now, if that also has native IPv6 and low latency, I might reconsider.