[Flipside]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8423340.stm

UK's 2009 Christmas Number One is Killing in the Name Of, by Rage Against The Machine

Absolutely delicious irony

[Nuke]

that song is ancient

[Flipside]

What's that got to do with anything?

The Beatles are ancient, doesn't mean their music no longer has any meaning.

[Nuke]

i really dont understand what the big deal is about, its not even that good.

[Flipside]

It's not about the song itself, it's about the whole idea of yet another X-Factor produced homogenous dirge being number one for Christmas, the people only chose it because of the lyrics.

And good is a relative term

[headdie]

I think another thing about it was the fact that most of the sales were download

[Flipside]

It won the world records for the most downloads in a week, and first tune ever to get to number one based more on downloads than any other method.

[Thaeris]

In general, I don't care for RATM. The only song I really would go out of my way to listen to is "Sleep Now in the Fire."

...I believe that's the name of it, anyway. 

[Ford Prefect]

I'm a huge Rage fan, so this was a huge dose of awesome as far as I'm concerned.

[TESLA]

Yeah but Simon Cowell who owns and runs x-factor, also owns the rights to 'rage against the machine'. So either way, he still makes a ****e load of money

[Flipside]

No, he doesn't, he's working with Sony, which has RATM as one of its bands, but there's no direct link between the two other than that. I think the complaint wasn't about the record label, or even against Cowell personally, but against the whole spoonfeeding of popular music that seems to be the trend at the moment.

[karajorma]

Exactly. People are sick of whatever song X-Factor releases being automatically the Christmas number one. Which is exactly why this particular song was chosen.

[StarSlayer]

Do I want to know what X-Factor is?

[Flipside]

Think 'Americas got talent', but just for singers.

[redsniper]

I saw the call for this on 4chan a few days ago. So you have Anonymous (at least in part) to thank for this.

[Bobboau]

yeah, this seems like the sort of thing Anonymous would do.

[Stormkeeper]

Well, thank God for them.

Never though I'd say that and actually (partly) mean it.

[karajorma]

Bear in mind that this wasn't their idea, even if they did support it. Hell, I don't know how late they joined in on this, could have been close to the end after it was already a big idea.

[Mongoose]

Just out of curiosity, is there some significance to having the #1 ranking at Christmas?  And do people actually pay attention to music charts anymore?

[Androgeos Exeunt]

The kind of music I hear now is not something you can buy off the shelf. Hence, no.