It's amazing to think that the one thing I truly couldn't care less about has inspired me to write a piece detailing why I care that I couldn’t care less about it.
Nobody’s really bothered about the pop charts. No-one cares about them, no-one in their right mind could tell you what was number one in the charts on the 14th March (Flo Rida, in case you’re interested); no-one really gives a toss.
Until now.
In their infinite wisdom, someone has decided to set up a group on Facebook protesting against Joe McElderry, the well-meaning-yet-ultimately-gimpy-toothed-bubble-headed winner of The X Factor, becoming Christmas number one and for Rage Against The Machine’s rather angry Killing In The Name Of to take the top spot instead. The reasons for this are rather unclear, depending on who you talk to about it. Some people insist it’s merely “a bit of fun”; some people see it as an attempt to bring down Simon Cowell’s “empire”. Some people see it as bringing the idea of “choice” back into the pop chart, which is a silly statement in itself as you’re ultimately not going to get much choice with a pop chart. At the end of the day, all you’re going to get is pop.
So before we move on, we know one thing: none of these X Factor haters are really sure what they’re signing up to or the agreed reasons behind it. That’s a bit daft, really. You can have your individual reasons, by all means - yet not being clear on why is a fundamental flaw in any campaign.
The official line on the Facebook group is that it’s been set up for people who are “fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act becoming number one”. Now, by the term “karaoke” I take it that they mean that they’re fed up of someone singing a song that wasn’t written by them. That makes sense; they’re championing true artists. Songs written and performed by the same act. Let’s look at the number ones from this year for an example.
Ah, here we go. Songs like Pixie Lott’s Mama Do - number one for a week in June. Written by….ooh, no - Mads Hauge and Phil Thornalley.
The Comic Relief song Islands In The Stream? Nope, sorry. That one was penned by the Bee Gees.
How’s about Kelly Clarkson’s My Life Would Suck Without You? Top of the charts in March? No mention of her as a writer. Max Martin, Dr. Luke and Claude Kelly take the credit for that.
The charts are full of songs like this; songs written by one person and performed by another. And you know why? Because peoplelike them. That’s the nature of the pop charts; brain teams up with beauty equals demand equals supply.
So if you’re a champion of Rage Against The Machine, what are you protesting about? If you're against the idea of the X Factor winner’s song, then you're just rallying against a subjective medium; something that in its very nature seems to be a little bit silly.
If you're against the "stranglehold grip" by Simon Cowell you're essentially tirading against one man who's been lucky enough to make a success out of what he does. You're complaining about someone being good at their job.
I’ve also been told that certain people don’t like the X Factor taking away from the spirit of the Christmas number one.
Ahem.
When you say that, what exactly do you mean? It’s not Christmassy enough for you? Count through the last twenty years worth of Christmas number ones. Do you see any festive hits there? No. You see Bob The Builder. You see Mr Blobby. You see the Spice Girls and you see Nizlopi. Very festive. Can you actually remember the last time there was an ACTUAL Christmas number one? No. And with good reason, too. Festive songs are TERRIBLE. As Bob Stanley writes in his Guardian article here – “For every Mud or Slade there's always been a Two Little Boys, an army of school choirs, and platoons of men in red and white velour headed by Clive Dunn or Shakin' Stevens – Christmas No 1s have usually been pretty feeble, and they still will be when Simon Cowell's empire finally fades away.”
So what else could you be complaining about? Let’s take it to its most basic level. What are the songs about? Lyrically, the X Factor song The Climb (made famous by Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana; I’m never sure where one person ends and the other begins) describes a journey which is difficult but rewarding. Sickening, maybe. But a perfect metaphor for McElderry.
On the other side of things, there’s Killing In The Name Of, originally an anti-KKK song, which, according to the BBC, rails against "the military-industrial complex, justifying killing for the benefit of, as the song puts it, the chosen whites".
So, an anti-racism song, adopted by a bunch of stroppy, rebellious kids and wannabe students seemingly unaware that they have full control of the media they love to indulge in and complain about. The control’s called an off switch, in case you’re still wondering.
Whatever your reasons, by refusing people to have the free choice of listening to whatever song they want to, you’re forcing them to join one of two camps. So doesn’t that make you no better than Simon Cowell and his “empire”?
You can CHOOSE what you want to listen to and when you want to listen to it. That’s the beauty of music. If you don’t like a particular song, don’t listen to it. Don’t make it a simple binary decision between these two acts. You can do anything you want; you can even choose to listen to Bros, if you like; it’s a free world.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the X Factor song. But it'll have fallen out of the charts in a week. I don't particularly like Joe McElderry. But I'm safe in the knowledge that he'll be dropped from his label and touring the West End within 18 months, where he can join the ranks of Ray Quinn and Darius in musical obscurity.
Similarly, I couldn’t care less if the only remaining copy of Killing In The Name Of melted in an horrendous accident involving Gail Porter and a traffic cone. Like many people I fondly remember dancing to it in various dingy, dirty nightclubs across the North West. But that was in the past, and that’s where it should stay, alongside living with the parents, Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush and bum worms.
To me, picking between the two acts is like picking between two identical cans of beige paint. Creating heavy marketing to take on something heavily marketed. Ah, the sweet, sweet smell of irony.
If you don't like the X Factor, don't have anything to do with it. That's fine. But don't instantly flock to the other side of the playground, chanting "my gang's bigger than your gang" - that's not musical choice, at best that’s a sixth-form mentality and at worst it’s downright bullying.
Rage against the X Factor? Fuck you; I won't do what you tell me.