As was the case last year when <insert 2008 Xfactor winner name (when I can be bothered to look it up) here> was nearly debunked by Jeff Buckley’s sublime cover of Leonard Cohen’s hallelujah (Cohen himself got swept up in it also I believe and made it to the mid 30’s), a similar upset laden beast has emerged from the swampy depths of Facebook.
Only this time its message is more loud and clear.
Zach De La Rocha and his band of politically savvy rockers dropped Killing in the Name way back in 1992 to much controversy but it seems like the stomping song will be sound tracking many turkey dinners this week much to grandma’s dismay if it manages to hold <insert 2009 Xfactor winner (when I can be bothered to look it up) here> from reaching the top spot.
News all over the web this morning is leaning hopefully towards the fact that this Xmas there will be a statement of potency and anger (albeit a 17 year old one) in the charts once more as more than 760,000 people have pledged to buy the track online. Is the move a hollow statement much too late or finally a shift in mass public consensus against a vile approach to selling average records?
Yes, Sony BMG will probably profit from your purchase anyway and Simon Cowell may be able to buy another speed boat or get one more flap of skin tucked back behind that ridiculous hair line but at least there’ll be something with some kind of pathos, social conscience (and a killer riff) ahead for once in an industry so desperate for a change of any kind. With the Facebook members and supporters also pledging money to charity “Shelter” (£30,000) raised so far I feel the “anti-anti’s” as I’ve been calling them are seriously missing the point.
Cowell stuck out at the group earlier in the week and in typical big headed moronic style attacked the campaign as a direct slating of him (also missing the point), calling the stunt “pointless” and “cynical” and “backward”.
People in glass houses, Mr Cowell…
You can buy Rage Against the Machine’s Killing in the Name on iTunes and any good online retailer and you can give to Shelter HERE.
You should do both… hey it is Xmas!
beccahutson
3 months ago
It was Alexandra Burke, and Joe McElderry.
And i KNOW you knew that!
I think this whole ‘get RATM’ to number one campaign is as cynical and backward as reality television, televised singing competitions and Mr. Cowell himself.
I will be donating to Shelter and supporting Joe this Christmas.