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
It was radio 5, not radio 1
You can listen to the whole show here. They shout "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me!" 16 times in a row at the end of the song which is the climax of the song. How the FUCK they could expect them to do what they told them is beyond me.
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
- Tom Morello via Wikipedia
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.
Amazon.co.uk sold both downloads as loss leaders. The 40p limit applies to the wholesale price, not the retail price.
- I pay Amazon 29p
- Amazon pays Sony 40p (or more?)
- It counts towards the chart
- Amazon hopes my retail experience was good, and I'll come back for more music downloads in future. This time at a profitable price.
Everybody's happy.
When Killing In The Name Of came out in 1992 there was, of course, no iTunes or any interwebsnet distribution channel. You had to have a label for your record to be heard, which at that time was Epic. As guitarist Tom Morello said "Epic agreed to everything we asked -- and they've followed through.... We never saw a conflict as long as we maintained creative control." Like Jane's Addiction four or so years before, the material was so strong that the bidding war between labels was that fierce that the band were able to lay down their own terms. Very few bands even of strongest principles against mass commercialisation were able to avoid a major label at that time. Even Chuck D allowed himself to be talked into Public Enemy being on a major label for several albums. Its only the democratisation of digital downloads, internet publicity and all that that has made it possible to bust that old model. A lot has changed in 17 years.
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
Some interesting things about that site:
* It was not set up by the same people who set up the main facebook campaign group
* It was set up after the campaign became popular and got coverage in the mainstream media
* It is not linked to from the main facebook group
* It does not link to the main facebook group (it links to its own facebook page, which is inactive in comparison to the actual campaig group)
* It seems to exist only to sell t-shirts (10% to charity but I bet they still make a profit)
I see no evidence that this has anything to do with the main facebook campaign and plenty that hints that it is just someone's attempt to cash in. If that is the case then it doesn't suprise me that someone who used to work with Simon Cowell is involved.