Slashdot Mirror
Facebook Campaign Decides UK Christmas Music Charts
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."
And RATM are giving the proceeds to Shelter too, good for them:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8423340.stm
I'm not sure which one is worse for the Christmas, Mankind and Intelligence, though,
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
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.
Oh, and Gnarls Barkley got to number 1 on downloads with Crazy a couple of years back. But hey, I suppose some of the things in the summary are true at least.
does adding "of" really make you that angry?
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
(Sorry)
Apparently, RATM swore live on air on radio 1. If you can't trust a heavy/rock metal group not to swear when they promise not to on a live set, who can you trust?
"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)
Its the first Christmas #1 on downloads alone but as you say there have been normal #1s for some time now.
More money for RIAA, thanks facebook!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY SHIT, OK?
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...)
The article said that this is the first Christmas number 1 to win on downloads alone; it is the summary is incorrect.
I am amazed that so many people are willing to vote for X-Factor and who should be no1 in the Christmas charts but will not vote for who runs the UK!
That's like totally horrifying.
At least protest for a something worthwhile - e.g. against clause 11 of the "Digital Economy Bill"http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200910/ldbills/001/10001.13-19.html Essentially gives Lord Mandelson complete control of what is published on Internet and unrivalled power and "interpretation" of copyright law.
You can join petitions here: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/list/open?cat=758
Then again Simon Cowell wants to "X-Factor" politics http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1236002/The-Politics-Factor-Simon-Cowell-unveils-plan-launch-election-debate-show.html This mentality scares the crap out of me!
What, that someone submitted a story about a song and couldn't even get its name right?
__f my lawn!
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
no, that someone used a very common name for a well-known song that happens to be one word longer than the 'real' name of the song.
perhaps you are worried that someone might mistake the title used in the summary for a completely different song?
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the frumious Bandersnatch.
Firstly, you should at least google "Rage Against The Machine" before saying something so incredibly ignorant. Secondly, 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. Your "mass marketing" straw man no place here.
As I walked into the Yamaha shop in Ginza an hour ago there was a CD player whacking out bloody Susan Boyle massacring John Stewart's Daydream Believer. There should be a law, there really should.
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.
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?
it's interesting to note that this is the first song to reach the number one spot through downloads alone in the UK
Umm, no it isn't. Crazy by Gnarles Barkley was the first song to reach number one in the UK on downloads alone. This was the first song to be the Christmas number 1 on downloads alone.
Now if you REALLY wanted to show you could change mass marketing, you would have gotten NOBODY to buy ANY song.
And just how the fuck would you do that? You can't prevent the people that like x-factor one hit wonder buying the single because THEY LIKE IT. They aren't going to protest it.
In this case by showing Sony we won't take their crap, by buying their crap
No, it's a case of showing Simon Cowell that we won't take his crap by buying someone else's music. yeah, it's on the same label but the sentiment of "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" is perfect when taken in this context.
Yeah, getting people to buy nothing is nice idea, but it's too passive to work. It's better this way.
Brain surgery - it's not rocket science!
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).
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
It's not like the X-factor winner's song sold badly. A song that gets to number 2 has made incredible profits. And it's unlikely that RATM displace many sales. The facebook campaign has made huge profits for both.
Amendment proposal 42 is before the House; the lawful slaying of sir Simon Cowell offe Brighton for crimes against humanity.
All in favour say Aye.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Being "brainwashed" into liking something doesn't negate you liking it. In fact, it entails it.
Social media are powerful alright, if your audience is a mouth-breathing uneducated mob.
An interesting debate, but I don't think Rage Against The Machine are a great example. The music is partially driven by their technical virtuosity - you really do have to be able to play guitar and use effects like Tom Morello to come up with some the elements of their songs. The actual sounds are pretty important for this style. And there aren't many metal bands that happen to have a singer that can rap. While the band can certainly do a good cover (see their version of "Maggie's farm"), it requires considerable creative input. While there is nothing wrong with having good songwriters and good performers, music would be considerably poorer if we didn't encourage people to pursue both.
The best thing for a good songwriter who isn't a performer is to team up with a strong performer and write material that will suit them. See Guy Chambers/Robbie Williams. It's far from unheard-of in rock for the main songwriter in a band to hide behind some keyboards or a guitar; let the frontman and lead guitarist do the flashy stuff.
Good Lord, do they? Are they all Scottish or something?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I tend to find that the only way music sounds very good is when the "performer" has a personal stake in it. So your songwriter is out of luck in my case.
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.
Stop using logic - you'll only be accused of trolling . . .
...and also great news for Cowel who gets royalties from all R.A.M. plays. ...absolutely hilarious. He laughs all the way to the bank.
smart guy!
So the whole thing has actually just ensured Cowel's profits have held up this year.....
Maybe he started the facebook campaign because he knew X-factor was slipping a bit.
Sony have profited to the tune of 500,000 digital downloads on the RATM track [...] I think it only fair that they make a gesture in kind and make a sizable donation to Shelter as well.
I presented your idea to Sony's CEO, and here's what he told me:
"Fuck you I won't do as you tell me!"
(He repeated that until fading out)
You don't rate Dionne Warwick's "Walk on By"?
Or The Stranglers' "Walk On By"?
The Beatles' "Roll Over Beethoven"?
I still say they should have voted for the greatest Christmas song of all time:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Got_Run_Over_by_a_Reindeer
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Why bother voting when the result is the same?
Because a Giant Douche is a way better school mascot than a Turd Sandwich? ...
They interviewed the guy who started the Facebook group on the radio. I suppose he could be Cowel's secret partner, but there's no evidence available to imply this. Anyway, people buy it for their own reasons, not to reduce the profits of anyone (or if anyone has, that individual has a too limited understanding of how the market works). The best thing is that Shelter, a great charity, gets a big boost this Christmas.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Real grassroots effort or just marketing astroturfing that tricked everyone?
Maybe it was just a "grassroots effort", not real.
Then everyone go buy something, and they get profit?
I don't like people tell me to buy something.
"Buy this, just to piss of X-Factor", eh?
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!
its not decided by anyone
third parties, if successful, either replace one of the dominant two, like the whigs in the 1800s in the usa, or one of the dominant two parties coopts the third party's message, relegating the third party back to maginalization, like with ross perot in the 1990s
furthermore, the similarity of the two dominant parties is not a weakness of democracy, but a strength. two parties compete for the moderates of the country, this forces them to moderate their own message in order to win votes. this leads to the parties being a better representation of the moderate middle, which leads to greater social stability: parity between the leaders of a country and its citizens
if the party has a strong zealot streak, such as currently in the usa with the teabaggers on the right, this is a good thing for the left, because by forcing an ideological litmus test on right-leaning candidates, the teabaggers force right-leaning candidates further right, thereby weakening their appeal to moderates, thereby weakening the right's showing in elections. if you are left-leaning in the usa, you should thank the stars for the appearance of right wing zealots like sarah palin and rush limbaugh on the landscape: this helps the left by giving moderate votes to left moderate candidates
meanwhile, if you believe that two similar parties is a weakness, or under some shadowy force's control, you are either a paranoid schizophrenic, or you simply don't understand that marginal, fringe parties should never dominate a country. because no matter how progressive your beliefs, the purpose of a government is to provide stability, first and foremost. the government should reflect the great moderate middle as much as possible, and this is what two parties achieves, and this goal is far more important than any other you can put forth
finally, third parties merely siphon votes off from their more moderate cousins, and therefore perversely empower the party most opposite you and your beliefs. its simple math
two parties the ultimate natural evolution of all democracies, and this is a good thing, despite you and your fringe beliefs, whether far right or far left. your marginalization is a benefit to the stability of your country
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
the "protest" is apparently against frivolity and capitalism and lack of seriousness of the christmas sales charts
as if christmas sales charts are anything but a frivolous, capitalistic and thoroughly unserious endeavour. christmas sales charts should always be dominated by x factor, because they deserve each other: completely pointless, unimportant bullshit. taking the idea of christmas sales charts seriously is your first mistake
ratm going to the top of the sales charts is not a reassertion of what's real, its not a protest against anything. its an equally lightweight air puff exercise taking place within the bubble of completely unimportant bullshit no one serious remotely cares about
anyone who sees this exercise as powerful or exhilarating has just announced themselves as a creme puff who doesn't have any real issues in their lives
no one serious fucking cares. its not the real world, its not a real issue
meanwhile, in the real world...
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
thank you for thoroughly filling my skull with that madness this morning. thanks a lot >:-(
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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!
No it is not worth mentioning:
1. It's not an anti-Sony campaign, anti-capitalism, anti-establishment or whatever other straw men you want to invent. The only thing in common with people's aim was stopping X Factor getting to number 1
2. They are not signed to the same label - they are signed to different labels, which in turn are owned by Sony. Big deal. If I saw a Playstation or DVD player that I wanted, I wouldn't go "OMG I can't they're owned by Sony".
3. Simon Cowell does not benefit. For heaven's sake, lets have a reality check here - Sony are a billion dollar multinational company. Simon may be rich, but let's get a sense of persepctive here. He does not and could not own them (he might have shares perhaps, but they're a public company - anyone can buy shares). Not to mention that Sony originated in Japan. I've seen this kind of clueless claim in the UK tabloids and elsewhere, but I'd hoped for a bit more thought on somewhere like Slashdot...
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
Leaving aside the anti-establishment straw man, how on earth does being anti-establishment mean people can't work together for a common cause? By that logic, no one could ever start a revolution unless they all worked individually and never gave suggestions to other people.
The occasional cover can be good, usually when it's done in jest rather than seriously, IMHO. But I can't say I particularly like any of the artists you mentioned there, no.
My tastes generally tend towards goth/industrial, so I invite you to draw your own conclusions as to how useful it is to take my preferences into account :)
Remember, the UK music charts are famous for being wonky and will react to minor fads pretty readily.
At any given time, the UK charts will have some old Elvis record, maybe something by Cliff Richards, an outtake from an Ozzie session. If a television program features some 1980's Flock of Seagulls horrorshow, it'll turn up on the UK charts next week. If you compare the UK charts with the much more influential US charts, you'd practically think they were in different countries or something.
When I was a kid, my brother (who's now a music critic) and I used to follow the music charts like rabbis study the Torah. We used to laugh our heads off over the goofy anomalies that would show up on the UK music charts.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Lots of people like mainstream media output,
could be. but i think the media offers too little variation; the public doesn't come in contact with lots of fantastic stuff that's out there; the public would have a much more variying taste if they would be offered more; but that would be more work and less profit for the music companies - wouldn't it ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
This reminds me of the brilliant plan to get the Hoff to number one a few years ago (http://www.gethasselhofftonumber1.com/).
The plan was that everyone signed up and was suppose to go out and buy the Hoffs new single the same week to get it to number 1. Unfortunatly he only got to number 2, beaten by Razorlight - America....
Even though I hate X-Factor and would love to see the singal fail it dissapoints me a bit that they managed to pull this off but the hoff couldnt...
We live in societies with historically high water mark standards of living and justice. It doesn't mean we're done, we still have a long way to go on both measures, but don't dismiss our very real, quantifiable progress so quickly. Whine all you want, but it just shows you lack all perspective or judgment or historical perspective.
Without government stability, you have no prosperity, security, education, or social progress: social and political stability is no joke. It is the most important thing a government can deliver. Really. That you dismiss the notion so easily merely demonstrates how out of touch you are with any of the issues in play that you are injecting your ignorant pessimism into. We aren't in the shitter, we're in the opposite. You go to Somalia, then you talk to us about who is living in the shitter and how unimportant political and social stability is.
Educate yourself. Have some real intelligent perspective in your words. Because currently, your cynicism is a replacement for intelligence, not a sign of it.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I now have 15 Em-Pee-Threes of "Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name", would anyone like to buy them from me? Actually only 14 for sale since I want to keep one.
In this case by showing Sony we won't take their crap
And there's your straw man. Everyone else new about Sony long before you - who said it was a campaign against Sony in any way?
Yes, I agree it shows how silly the charts are, but that itself was part of the point for some of us:
In fact what this shows is that the system WORKS. Hype a song to a group and voila, instant hit.
You're missing the point - yes it played by the same rules, but it did so in a way that was so ludicrious, it becomes obvious how silly it is. A single from 17 years ago? That wasn't even rereleased? That wasn't in the shops? That didn't have any paid for advertising? Yes, suddenly it is apparently how silly it is that an organised campaign can get any song they like to number 1, even at the most difficult week of the year.
(Also the RATM "system" didn't involve spending large sums of money on marketing, or being accompanied with a TV show watched by millions of viewers, so not really the same.)
Now if you REALLY wanted to show you could change mass marketing, you would have gotten NOBODY to buy ANY song.
Which is a lot harder of course. Feel free to have a go yourself next year.
Dig a little.
The campaign set up a website.
This site is registered in the name of a Mr. Neill Ridley, founder of a little PR firm called Eject Media.
By a curious coincidence, Neill Ridley used to be an A&R man at... Sony.
Guess who he worked with there? Oh, look, it's Simon Cowell...
More here.
They deliberately chose that band and that song to give themselves a good laugh at the general public. "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me"? Looks like you just did.
This is the only good post in this thread.
I'd be interested in your take on Johnny Cash's cover of NIN's "Hurt" then.
"There are no facts, only interpretations." --Friedrich Nietzsche.
I doubt it. The cognitive load of liking a wider variety of music is probably too high. I don't say this to be condescending--I have a wider taste in music than just about anyone I know, but I still go through phases. Skipping from one genre to another too quickly is... uncomfortable.
People like things to be comfortable, there's nothing wrong with that. The X-Factor music though, well it's really pretty bad. We could have a better mainstream. Heck, I think the mainstream from the 50s to the 90s was okay. The mainstream's gone downhill (possibly because people with different tastes have splintered into subcultures).
I'm no fan of X Factor, but even with 20 million viewers (presumably the number of voters was less than that), the number of people who voted in the 2005 election was still higher. So how do you know that these people don't vote?
And for the million people who bought either of the singles, clearly the number of voters in elections is far higher.
Tell me, have you ever bought a single? Or took part in something trivial? Is it therefore valid for me to say "How dare you do that! There are more important things to worry about!"
I could say the same argument to you here: as much as I find things like the Digital Economy Bill serious, there are still worse things in the world. In fact, people do make those criticisms ("in other countries, people are get murdered, why do you waste your effort on some UK bill?"). And I find it very frustrating. So I find it depressing to see you using the same argument against something in turn more trivial.
What are you doing posting to Slashdot btw? Aren't there better things to be doing? And why did you pick this story? What about the endless stories we get about various computer or phone products - shouldn't those be dropped to make way for more coverage on important bills?
You've got me there. It's beautiful.
No, no he doesn't. Stop perpetuating this myth.
> 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?
A great band can usually make just about anything sound good, and if it's something they wrote themselves you can at least expect they'll put a little bit of love into the performance.
Either option one is far, far better than the more trendy third option of a mediocre band performing a mediocre song written by someone else. And by "mediocre" I mean "usually bad", and by "written by" I mean "grocery list" rather than "artistic".
c.
Log in or piss off.
and i understand why washington hates political parties. i hate them for the same reasons he does
but who the fuck cares?
political parties are INEVITABLE. social human beings congregate into parties. you cannot prevent this, no one can prevent this. so you should stop trying to deny an ugly but obvious truth of human social existence and accept it and work within its unfortunate parameters
this is the point where you can either shoot the messenger (me), simply because i tell you an unyielding ugly truth of reality, or you accept it
washington and the founding fathers were men, not demigods. they did a lot right, and i thank them for that. but their words are not biblical passages to be worshipped like a religion without question, but to be analyzed and either rejected or accepted. plenty of what they said was genius. but they were still fallible men, so much of their words are also flat out wrong. who decides which is which? you do. but you can't look at all of their rhetorical output like the words of jesus or muhammad
there's this strange strand of american thought that views the founding fathers and the constitution and the bill of rights like they were the quran or the bible. i'm sorry, but the founding fathers would view people like this with far more disdain than anything they fought against in their lifetimes. because what they fought for, and won, was a rational logical foundation for a progressive, prosperous government and society
the opposite of that would be this sort of quasireligious, unthinking worship of their words like they were born of angels and gilded into stone and gold
no, if you want to abide by the founding fathers and their principles most faithfully, yhen you will question their words, and reject some of their words or accept some of their words in the same logical rational fashion they formulated those words with. the founding fathers would want you to do this, because they certainly viewed religious fanaticism with disdain
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yep X-Factor should be number 1 at least according to Syco and Sony's numbers. It must be due to the dam increase in pirates out there. It has been proclaimed #1 by music industry so it shall be. Any change from this proclamation is 100% the result of pirates and Syco and Sony should be rightly be compensated by tax payers monies.
Now, if only we can transfer this enthusiasm to politics...
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I agree, but note that with X Factor it's not simply a case where you have a team of separate songwriter and performer, but also that it's just cover versions. So we've already heard the song anyway. Now sure, there have been plenty of great songs that were actually covers, but the point is in those cases, the band does it in a new style. AFAICS, X Factor covers are pretty much repeats of the original. And to top it all, in this case the original song isn't even a year old.
Don't get me wrong, I play the piano and for the most part that involves me trying to play other people's music without any creative input of my own, and I don't think there's anything wrong with it. But the point is, I wouldn't expect to be number 1 in the charts by doing this.
Why do you think they listen to the radio 25000 times a day? Because they like it!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
I do agree with all of this. My original post was only intended to counter the frequent "don't even write their own songs" criticism.
As you say, X-Factor fodder is much worse than this. It's usually a cover of an already well known song. The arrangement is done by a professional, with an eye towards being as safe as possible. The backing is performed by musicians who's job is to play what they're given without question. Nobody involved has a mandate to be creative.
But compare this to the still extremely commercial output of Girls Aloud, and acts like them.
They don't write their own songs, but they get the cream of the material sold to the record company by talented commercial songwriters.
They're produced by talented and creative producer/musicians who come up with stuff that rock snobs might not like, but which I would argue cannot be described as assembly line pop (unlike the hated Stock-Aitken-Waterman 'hit factory' of the 80s).
You *can* combine a songwriter who doesn't perform, a production team who are not the act, a singer who is not an instrumentalist, and put them together to make something of value.
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.
Yeah, if you want to show how people can get together to slow down the commercial dominance in the music scene, especially around X-Mas time, call me crazy, but why would you select a band that is a part of that music.
I just think it is very strange to pick a band that is signed to the same label as the X-Factor dude who you did not want to have this.
The big name label that you wanted to avoid getting paid is still getting paid, so did you really do anything to fight commercial music when the exact label you wanted to fight against, you just helped get more sales.
Dude, that is not a minor detail, in fact, that is a pretty big fail there kids. Remember, if you are fighting commercialist music, do not vote for a band you like that is signed to the same label of the stuff you are fighting against.
The world is how you make it
no matter what the voting system, we will tend towards two parties. this is because while there is a million ideologies out there, all of mankind assembles along the most important ideological spectrum: rate of change. slower change, right leaning, or faster change, left leaning. third and fourth parties merely represent the fringe: people who want change to stop, or even move backwards: far-right reactionaries, and people who want massive social and political revolution to leap frog into some untested dubious new arena: far left wack jobs
also, some third and fourth parties represent temporary extraideolgical issues like, for example, the ethnic imperatives of quebec in canada, or issues of traditional classism in england, or the amalgam of domestic geopolitical issues in india, etc. as a country tends towards purely ideologically driven politics, rate of change, and the desire to slow things down or speed things up, becomes the dominant political axis across which all other issues assemble. and therefore two political parties dominate. all other parties are marginal, extraideological satellites
even in once one party dominant countries, as long as the dominant party plays fair and allows mostly free elections and aren't authoritarian, like mexico and japan, a two party system begins to assert itself
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I quite like "Killing in the Name" but it is fairly contrived and hardly really subversive, just exploiting standard youth feelings of rebellion, alienation and frustration.
It does fill me with glee to see the charts subverted this way though.
Cowell has business interests with Sony BMG (the label in question) going back many years. He has sold several labels to Sony and signed a contract with them as recently as 2005, maybe more recently.
If you are taken in by the play acting, you are a mug. Cowell and the Sony BMG executives must be laughing their heads off at you suckers. Just 5% goes to the artist - if they are lucky. The rest goes to the distributors, the retailer and the label.
Get off your fat arse, switch the television off, and do something worthwhile. Don't bother replying. I'll be up and gone long before you do.
Aka "Killing in the name of... christmas"
two peaks in the rocky mountains are identical, indistinguishable
from the valley in between those two peaks, those same two peaks couldn't be more massively different
think about it
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
...about who's at #1?
All these Rage fans getting so het up about X-factor being top of the chart. And yet they themselves seem to feel the need to have their music choice validated by everyone else buying the same.
The chart is about populist music - by definition. So why complain about X-factor-bots being at the top of it?!?
Jeez. Sheeples, all of them. If you like music, buy/listen to it. If not, don't. WTF GAFF about whether all the other people out their bought it?
You're right here. They really do like it. Why? Because they're stupid. The lowest common denominator is common after all.
This is why the phrase "50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong" is wrong. They can, and most likely are. Popularity has nothing to do with quality. Just because lots of people like it doesn't mean that it's good.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
no, i think people who like mainstream media just don't bother to go looking for other music. i can't count the number of times i've played something 'odd' in my car driving with someone and they think i'ts awesome. it is difficult to actually find non-mainstream music sometimes if you don't know what to actually look for to start with. i'm not saying people don't like mainstream stuff, i just don't think most of them have any familiarity with a real extreme value of 'like'
Oh dear, somebody needs to explain the concept of the Bell Curve to you. You see if Stupid is toward left part and Smart is to the right, then the maximal target audience is in the middle, not to the "Stupid" end. Unless you're somehow going to argue that "Stupid" isn't a relative term which it certainly is. Why would anyone market to the lowest common denominator? Lowest Common Denominator would mean that you're pitching your product at some drooling idiot and hoping that everyone else bizarrely likes it too. No, you pitch toward the middle of the Bell Curve.
Now that can mess up some things when you try to please everyone and fail to please anyone, but that tends to happen with big budget movies where the studios are desperate to include everyone in their potential audience, rather than in music which is accepted as being inherently limited in appeal.
As regards your statement that just because lots of people like something it doesn't mean that it is good... please could you define "good" as regards music without referring to the quality of whether or not people like it, which would be self-referential.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Oh dear, somebody needs to explain the concept of the Bell Curve to you. You see if Stupid is toward left part and Smart is to the right, then the maximal target audience is in the middle, not to the "Stupid" end.
If you're selling something that requires a certain amount of sophistication to appreciate, you're targeting everyone above that level of sophistication. You then maximize your audience by lowering the sophistication.
As regards your statement that just because lots of people like something it doesn't mean that it is good... please could you define "good" as regards music without referring to the quality of whether or not people like it, which would be self-referential.
I cannot provide a list of necessary and sufficient conditions for a work to be good, no. However plenty of examples exist to show that popularity is neither necessary nor sufficient for a work to be good.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
so,... I get the protest against corporate and mainstream music (Simon Cowell's empire). Could the guy have at least found an obscure holiday tune? Heck I'd have just as pleased with BNL's Hannukah song.
Note the word "if". I can release "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in C Major and four year olds up and down the land will "get" it. Will it sell? No, because it is too simple for everyone else. Clearly music is not a case of everything above a certain level is acceptable. Clearly hitting a point where the majority of tastes lie is more profitable than targeting the lowest common denominator and somehow thinking everyone above that finds it acceptable. You are accusing the big labels of trying to please everyone by targeting a minority audience. That obviously doesn't match the facts. And all this is allowing your contention that quality in musical terms is a scale from unsophisticated to sophisticated. Unless you're also auggesting that the nature of "sophisticated" changes from generation then it makes no allowance for the popularity of different styles. What's more sophisticated - Rolling Stones' Sympathy for the Devil or Beethoven's Fifth? Now which piece is best. Objectively. Which music is best for dancing to in a club - something with some simple harmonies and a thumping bassline or Tori Amos' Yes, Anastasia. According to you the one with the greatest level of artistry. Yeah - you're right. I love jumping around to Tori Amos.
Well if you can't state a criteria for "good" then its my contention that when saying "good" you mean "the property of being liked". In which case how do you distinguish music people like from music that is good? If that's not the case, then define "good" in terms of music other than "it is liked".
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
You had to have a label for your record to be heard, which at that time was Epic.
Nonsense. There were and still are *lots* of ways to be 'heard.' If you mean 'heard' like distribution through the media conglomerate controlled Mass Market distribution channel with music-industry-friendly content, then you would be right. Otherwise there was a vibrant DIY music performing industry that the media conglomerates didn't care about because they were *still* making a killing with the 70's Dinosaurs of Rock.
Very few bands even of strongest principles against mass commercialisation were able to avoid a major label at that time.
This could not be further from the truth. There were *many* attempts at the media conglomerates to get any number of groups to cross-over. RATM was one that made it.
Jane's Addiction was one of many bands at the time that could have crossed over just fine. Other media conglomerates were trying to get 'alternative' bands to sell because sales from Dinosaurs of Rock acts were *finally* declining.
Same industry, different day. This is what the music industry was trying to homogenize for mass consumption at the time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZjQ1IaT89U
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Following one of the biggest battles in the history of the UK Singles Chart, Sony BMG have beaten Sony BMG to achieve the UK's official Christmas number one.
Artists signed to the label have taken the festive top spot for four years in a row. A Facebook campaign backing the record company aimed to stop another song on the label reaching the Christmas number one spot once again.
Sony BMG-signed guitarist Tom Morello said the campaign had "tapped into the silent majority of the people in the UK who are tired of being spoon-fed one schmaltzy ballad after another" and who can now buy a vastly superior download of insubstantial computerised bits and bytes from the same company. "They're taking a stand against mindless music by buying it like they were told to."
He said their victory looked back to such great Sony BMG artists as the Clash, as opposed to those EMI sellouts the Sex Pistols. "It's like when Bill Clinton got to the White House and they played Fleetwood Mac. It said 'We've made it.' Man. The young people of today must be so excited!"
Meanwhile, free downloads continued to increase in line with Moore's Law and the growth of live music as opposed to canned. Sony BMG's victory remained news for almost three hours before this week's inexplicable second-string celebrity heart attack took over Twitter and everyone proclaimed how they'd always loved whoever it was. Simon Cowell has tipped Finland's Lordi as hot prospects for next year's X-Factor. Next year's Facebook campaign will be to get this year's Joe McElderry single to number one.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Lots of people like mainstream media output, and that's what makes it mainstream.
The thing is that those "lots of people" don't decide what the mainstream media output will be, it is simply thrust upon them. More likely an envelope full of cash makes the decision, and the most honest scenario still involves people like Simon Cowell.
What makes people like mainstream is repetition. After 25 listens or so, a song is in your head whether you want it there or not. My child went through the Disney Channel phase a few years ago, which included a couple seasons of Hannah Montana, and at least two of the High School Musicals, which seemed to run on an endless loop for about a month, when you consider the regular version, dance version, "pop-up" version, each of which got a week or so.
After all that overkill, those Disney albums still topped the charts, with a target demographic that's too young to have any money because they're too young to have a job.
Speaking for all parents of pre-teens at the time, we had already listened to these albums, in their entirety, several times. Compared to Ms. Spears, who was just beginning to melt down at the time, or Pink, or Christina Aguilera, Hannah Montana and High School Musical were pretty safe choices when a birthday or Christmas came along.
The other line of thought I have on this is that, once upon a time, mainstream music was on AM; everything else was on FM. Then, one day, talk radio took over AM, the mainstream music went to FM, and everything else got kicked to the wayside. Even the "classic rock" stations only play the songs that were hits, but nothing new.
Rock is still the biggest selling genre, despite the only current mainstream bands seeming to be Nickleback and Coldplay before you start naming people that have been doing it for decades. The Billboard Top 200 doesn't include anything more than 18 months old. This means it is certainly skewed, just like everything else involving the record labels and basic math. The answer to how much is behind a pay wall.
this is the reason why two parties come to dominate inevitably: right versus left is a basic duality springing from basic human psychology and the way we all think about issues
there are of course a million dimensions of ideology. there's gun toting right wingers... who grow pot on their rural farms. there's gay people... who are mostly right wing in thinking (the log cabin republicans). there's very religious people... who are utterly socialist in their thinking about taking care of the community, by the community. etc., etc., etc, ad nauseum
for every issue, there is a dimension of opinions. and there's a million issues. so for every person, there is a unique ideology. you could mix up make up the most seemingly contradictory impossible ideology of various opinions on various issues, and you'll probably find at least someone out there who believes that with a serious straight face
but there's not a million dimensions THAT MATTER. there's only one that matters, that exerts a force, derived from the way we think, the way we socialize, that assembles all of these issues along one axis
we don't talk about left and right wing because we are simpletons and reductionists, we talk about left and right wing because this is an entirely real and completely dominant ideological pivot, a genuinely valuable metric to use when debating politics: rate of change. we don't use this as a shorthand to decribe something far more complex that is going on, we use right versus left because this genuinely reflects the way our mind thinks about things and organizes issues and options. and from this springs the reason two parties will always come to dominate, in societies that are purely ideological in its political landscape
all other parties are related to social side issues, mostly historical geographic differences, which creates a chasm of trust, across which political affiliation is not purely ideological
for example: quebec interests in canada with the bloc quebecois. class issues in india. show me a country with a significant third or fourth party, and i will show you a party centered on an ethnicity, a language, a region, or some other chasm of trust that allows this nonideologically derived party to assemble. of course all parties are ideological, but not all of them have their reason for existence deriving from a pure ideological play
but in countries where pure ideological plays dominate, two parties dominate. and each party examines each issue from the point of view of rate of change, and has a platform on that issue that coopts the existence of any third or fourth party to take a significant option that is not already enunciated by one of the major two
yes: two parties are the inevitable dominant status quo in all democracies, in all places, in all times. aberations from a dominant two parties is because of artifacts of culture/ language/ ethnicity/ class/ etc., often along geographic lines
so you see more than two parties all over europe because europe is a patchwork of tiny ethnicities. in one country, you can go to the next valley over, and they have an entirely different culture, or even language. in belgium you have flanders and the walloons. in spain you have the basque, catalonia, andalucia, etc. this geographic and classist fractionation is the force that means more than two parties are in play. modernization and mobility slowly erode these differences, sometimes it takes a long time, but inevitably, smaller parties of smaller nonideologically-derived allegiances eventually fade
in the usa, you have pretty much the same amalgam of people in san franciso as you have in new york, miami as in seattle. same language. same tv shows every night. of course, it wasn't always this way: the southeastern portion of the country was largely distinct at one time. and in fact, historically, this was the era of the republicans, democrats, and whigs, and a number of other fractional interests. but as the country emerged from this more stratified and separated environment, the his
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Right! We talk about left and right wing because of the eighteenth century arrangement in the étas généneraux -- the assembly of deputies summoned by the king to petition and advise him on behalf. In the years shortly before the American and French Revolutions (and informed by the English Revolution (1688), whiggism and radicalism in 17th c. Great Britain, and the social contract movement in Britain and especially France (1650s-1750s)), the eacute;tas généneraux also comprised representatives popularly elected by the taxable classes to grant the king legitimacy in the collection and disposition of taxes. The untaxable classes' representatives sat to the right of the monarch or his deputy acting as president of the assembly; the taxable classes sat to the left. The overall seating arrangement was U-shaped, and personal preferences originally prevailed in the arrangement of seating. Unsurprisingly, personal and political animosity went hand-in-hand, so sitting closest to the untaxable classes were deputies who favoured the maintenance of their non-taxability. That is, they favoured the existing arrangements for feudal lords and senior church figures, with whom they were "buddies". Sitting furthest away were radicals who favoured egalitarian taxation and removing discretionary powers from the feudal lords and the monarch.
Admittedly this supports your hypothesis that "left-right" relates to "change-less_change" at least in the context of pre-revolutionary France. However, after the Revolution it is much harder to decide which factions were most in favour of change and which were not. In part, that is simply related to the question of which system was in place: if you wanted to fine-tune the republican system in the run-up to Napoleon, you were almost certainly seated on the left of the National Convention, whereas if you favoured a *new* Roman-style dictatorship you were probably seated towards the right, with the centre comprising some people who favoured a restoration of the "old working system" with some progressive tweaks like a constitutional monarchy, or a figurehead royalty overlaying a liberal democracy much like the one evolving in the UK (as it had become in 1801). On the left were people who felt the First French Republic was working just fine and should be left to evolve organically, and an assortment of people who thought something like the Directorate would be a good idea.
In that seating arrangement there "stability-oriented" faction was centre-left by where their personal choice of seats happened to be, and by modern European political standards pretty centrist (many of them would have been comfortable as Social Democrats). Almost all the other factions were keen on yet another major social upheaval.
In the UK the seating flipped; to the right of the Speaker of the House of Commons and to the right of the King (or the Lord Chancellor on the woolsack) sat the government ministers and their supporters; to the left sat the opposition. Consequently, "left wing" vs "right wing" was an alien import from France but which was useful to characterize the Tories (supporters of a strong executive leaning heavily on the exercise of royal prerogative, favouring an expansion of hereditary legislators among the new rich mercantile, military, and civil servant classes) and the Whigs and Radicals (supporters of a strong Parliament reducing the scope of the royal prerogative and stripping residual personal prerogative from the monarchy, reducing the influence of hereditary legislators, extending the franchise to more people, and so forth), since this was also the alignment in France at the time.
In the USA, the Westminster seating-flip arrangement was rejected on separation of powers grounds, and the selection of which party sat to the right of the Speaker or President of each House of Congress became a matter of negotia
there are 3 parties in a hypothetical country, of equal strength and appeal
there is an inevitable effort by two of them to align themselves against the third. any power politician worth their salt would attempt this. it will probably happen along grounds of ideological affinity, some sort of shared interest/ agenda. eventually, this affinity means that entire opinions as well as political characters are coopted by one party which is slightly more dominant, a process which accelerates because the idea is to be on the winning side, and if ideology is mostly the same, all things being equal, put your energy into the larger party assured of more winning and more power for you. this leads to the drying up and marginalization of the third increasingly smaller party until it is a historical fringe anachronism. its simply inevitable power politics at work: three parties is unstable, two parties is stable
further consolidation, to one party, is impossible without force. simply because there are always alternative views on any important issue, and this means there is always a legitimate, valid, popular ideological basis for a second party in countries that play fair (as we see in japan and mexico)
all issues can be seen as having a myriad of opinions. so it would seem that the dominant three or four or five, etc parties will migrate to one of those opinion themes to stand out as a good choice. but the way the human mind works, its always a duality that asserts itself, that third or fourth options are relegated down the mental checklist, such that only two options dominate the mind and thought processes at picking between those choices. its simple psychology, this duality. we debate between two sides in our mind, we aren't equipped mentally to juggle between three or four or more choices mentally. its always two
even if the mind is aware of three or four or more good choices, it doesn't work out those choices in parallel. it focuses on one conflict between two choices at a time, works that out, and then focuses on another conflict. in this way, there's always only two competing sides to an issue in the human mind. this is the basis for two parties being dominant, always and only, and why we think, always and only, in all cultures, and all time periods, in terms of left wing and right wing. its a simple, inevitable consequence of the structure of our mind and how it works
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical
third or fourth opinion themes, and the parties associated with them, simply lack interest or attention because of this bias in our mental processes. and even if a new third or fourth opinion theme reasserts itself as more sensible or popular, one of the two dominant parties, in the simple interest of retaining power, simply coopts that opinion theme so as to not lose traction with people's attention. they can do this because third and fourth choices are not usually that far ideologically from one of the other two top opinion choices
however, there do exist issues that both top parties are anathema to even address, for various reasons, such as, even talking about the issue is a liability. this allows for a third or fourth party to appear, based on a single taboo issue that the dominant two parties do not address. you see that with the piracy party, the marijuana party, and other fringe single issue parties
but, for example, if marijuana goes more mainstream, as it promises to do in the usa, you will not see the growth of the marijuana party. instead, you will see a shrinking of this party, simply because, now that the issue isn't taboo anymore, the republicans and democrats start talking about marijuana, start taking positions on marijuana, and therefore coopting the reason for the marijuana party to even exist in the first place. and so it dries up. in this way, there is no room for a third party to ever gain traction in the minds of the public based on the issues: the dominant two coopt all of the relevant issues in a
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it