Everyone that knows me knows that I hate reality T.V. simply because there is nothing reality about it. Producers put regular people in situations that would otherwise never happen. That’s as far from reality as you can get. You want reality? Follow me around as I work my 8 hour day and try to find time to train for an Ironman and still keep a healthy relationship with my wife and family. Now that’s reality. Boring, I know.
That being said, I also hold a deep distain for those that produce these types of shows. Namely Mark Burnett and Simon Cowell. Others apparently have the same feelings that I do and wanted to take a little pot shot at ol’ Simon.
For the last four years an act that Cowell nurtured has ruled the UK charts at Christmas time, Shayne Ward in 2005, Leona Lewis in 2006, Leon Jackson in 2007 and Alexandra Burke in 2008. This year Simon was counting on another slam dunk with Joe McElderry’s Christmas song “The Climb”. But Rage Against The Machine had a most sinister plan already worked up to ruin the holidays for Cowell. The band joined an online campaign urging fans to buy it’s song “Killing in the Name”, which had been originally released back in 1992 on RATM’s self-titled album.
According to the Telegraph UK:
Morello, the band’s guitarist, joined in by posting on Twitter: ‘Rage’s Killing in the Name & the X-Factor’s goofy Christmas single are neck and neck for the number one spot on UK chart. England! Now is your time.’
The RATM campaign began with a Facebook group which asked: ‘Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas No 1? Me too… So who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track Killing In The Name as a protest to the X Factor monotony?’
Cowell wasn’t too pleased with this and called the stunt “stupid” and “cynical”.
Cowell’s rage doesn’t really matter because RATM won the battle with 500,000 sales in one week while McElderry came up short with only 450,000. According to NME there were also some records broken in the process.
In taking the title for 2009, ‘Killing in the Name’ also set two new landmarks, becoming the U.K.’s first download-only Christmas Number One and notching up the biggest one-week download sales total in British chart history, according to the Official Charts Company.
On the bands website they posted this thanks to their fans.
“We’ve shown that we can make a difference and that you don’t have a right to Number One just because Simon Cowell says so, especially with a bad cover!
Finally I would like to say thank you to all of you, we’ve raised 64,726.00 pounds for Shelter at the time of writing this, the difference that this will make to peoples lives is truly amazing.
We gotta take the power back – Rage Against The Machine – Merry Christmas.”
