Rage Against The Rage Ragers

I’m supporting the campaign to make Rage Against The Machine the Christmas number one. Why? Because it’s a song I’ve loved for years and I think it deserves to be acknowledged better than the lowly chart position it received when it was first released back in the ’90s. That’s all.

That said, I’m sick of all the clever dicks who keep making those really annoying “you do realise” questions. “You do realise that they’re both Sony songs so Simon Cowell makes money no matter what?” Yes, but Simon Cowell has plenty of money already. This isn’t about money to him, it’s about power. He had nothing to do with Rage Against The Machine and I’m sure he’s not exactly going to be jumping for joy about something he didn’t create outselling something he did to deprive him of that all-important Christmas number one spot that means so much to the music industry in the UK.

“You do realise the irony in buying a song that says ‘fuck you I won’t do what you tell me’ when in reality by buying it you’re only doing what someone else tells you?” Well, if I decided to be a rebel and buy Saturday Night by Whigfield instead it might not really have the same impact. There needs to be someone organising what’s going on, otherwise no song will really have a chance of challenging the top spot. The difference with this campaign is that we at least have a choice. Nobody is “telling” us to buy the song, we’re choosing to support it. On the other hand, without the campaign the X Factor song would be number one whether we wanted it or not.

“You do realise this would have been better had you been backing a festive song instead?” Sorry, I forgot The Climb was all about Santa’s arduous journey up the side of a bungalow. Personally, yes, I would have preferred something like Fairytale Of New York to have been the campaign song, but the truth is the Rage song is far more effective. It’s so different to the schmaltzy X Factor song that it seperates the listeners into two completely different camps.

I’ve been a Rage Against The Machine fan for around a decade now. The most important thing about this campaign in my opinion isn’t necessarily the battle for the Christmas number one. In my heart I’d love it to win but in my head it doesn’t seem likely, not when all the mums start buying the CD single for their children’s Christmas when they go shopping after work tonight.

What’s important for me is what’s currently top of the iTunes album charts: Rage Against The Machine. This campaign has given the band far more coverage than it’s ever had in the mainstream media, and it’s finding a huge new potential audience as a result.

And if just a handful of these new listeners take note of the political messages throughout the rest of Rage’s songs, they may feel encouraged to learn more and get politically active. That’s the real success story here.