I'm sure most must have heard about the unlikely Christmas No.1 battle in the UK this year. Well I've been sucked in and bought Rage Against The Machine's profanity laden Killing in the Name (which I already owned) ahead of X-Factor winner Joe McElderry's The Climb (although it's not really his, but we'll get to that).
To begin with though, as much as I may like him to be, Simon Cowell is not rattled by this. I may not like the bilge he pumps into the airwaves year after year but he's an intelligent man who hasn't made umtpy-thrumpty millions by being an easily perturbed idiot. For all his protestations in the press he will be loving this battle - all publicity is good publicity in this case. Syco records won't sell any less Joe McElderry CDs as a result of this. If anything this means more X-Shocker singles will be sold, as more fans of it hear Killing in the Name and recoil in horror and run out to buy it. Similar to the boy himself. I'm ignoring the Sun's "They wouldn't get through to boot camp..." quote as it just sounds ridiculous and I wouldn't trust the Sun for anything. I very much hope that quote is out of context, or I really do despair but the lad seems pretty diplomatic about the whole thing. But all this coverage is why Cowell can't stop popping up in the press talking about it. Despite shelling out my 50-odd pence I have no doubt at this point that the X-Factor physical sales from today will tell and propel another crap ballad into the Christmas playlists. I would say he needs a No.1 not for his pockets but for the X-Factor brand to continue spinning money the way it is now.
So why am I bothering? Why does it matter? Well it was not a Simon Cowell quote that got me so annoyed, but that annoying little idiot Louis Walsh. He claimed it was "killing the fun" in the race for the top spot. For who? You and your cronies? This is the most fun I've had with a Pop Chart in years. It's the first time I will have paid attention to anything involving the Christmas No.1 since...well, ever. I've had immense fun with RATM swearing on 5Live and sending producers into panic, the ridiculous mashup videos and all the rest of it. The supposed ironies over the song choice of the massive facebook group are unimportant and miss the point. It's a vote against the show, as members of RATM have said, and an attempt to make the charts interesting. The final lines of the song are Zack de la Rocha screaming "F*** you, I won't do what you tell me!" and it's appropriate for multiple reasons.
About 3 days ago I went and looked at the iTunes download chart and spotted two oddities. Stop Crying Your Heart Out by Oasis hanging around the top 30 and Don't Stop Believin' by Journey right up in the top 10. I then discovered they had been performed on the X-Factor recently. All this Rage Against The Machine campaign is showing is that the massive marketing machine that propels glorified karaoke singers to chart topping positions and long-forgotten singles back into them is not the sole preserve of the Simon Cowells, Nigel Lythgoes and and Pete Watermans of the world. Exposure correlates with sales pretty closely, and it always has. In an age of quick word-of-mouth through things like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube there is no reason why what record executives decide should dominate the charts and this is proof of it. Even if RATM don't make it, the fact remains that politically themed, rap metal song from 1992 about the LA Riots got to No.2 in the UK charts - purely as a result of facebook group gaining some traction.
Secondly, X-Factor contestants should adopt the song's final refrain as their motto. Where are the previous winners of these type of shows? Michelle McManus, Steve Brookstein, Leon Jackson, One True Voice? Where are these people now, not even counting other finalists? Absolutely nowhere, getting dropped the minute they were past their prime - which was about a few months to the marketing men. Anyone who genuinely wants a singing career should not audition for the X-Factor. A quick 15 minutes? Yes, but unless you are fairly talented (there have been exceptions) there is no career through this route. What ever happened to a distinguished but low-key session career? As long as you do what King Simon decrees you're fine. It's about time there was some creativity involved, rather than just churning out (rather bad) covers. This is not the best route, or even the easiest, to a musical career. To all X-Factor hopefuls I implore you, turn to Cowell and say "I won't do what you tell me!" It's ironic he claims this is "[putting] down young talent" given that is exactly what he himself does when it's no longer making money for him.
Can the show be entertaining? Sure, of course it can and it must be. Not my cup of tea, I hate it, but 19 million people don't watch it if they do. It's about time it stopped being a shop window for music though (and not new music either, we're now talking Miley Cyrus covers for goodness sake, the original only came up about a year ago or something). In the year that has seen the cancellation of the grandfather of all reality TV shows, Big Brother, it seems appropriate to deliver a big two's up to the X-Factor before it hopefully begins to go the same way.
I'm fed up with it, and clearly millions of other people are as well. We're "cynical" and "stupid"? It's "very Scrooge" and we're "taking the fun out of it"? No we're not, quite the opposite. We should just shut up? Well f*** you, Simon, I won't do what you tell me.
