Rage Against The Machine vs the X-Factor Bloke

OK, first up... I've not heard the X-Factor single. It's probably some bland, inoffensive shite like most of the Cowell factory output. Just not my thing at all.

But the campaign against it, in the name of buying Rage Against The Machine's Killing In the Name Of... strikes me as interesting for what it says about the buyers.

Most of the people tweeting about how terrible it is that a piece of Cowell crap will get to number 1 are not regular chart followers. They don't care about the charts. Why would anyone be? We no longer have our choice of music driven by Top Of The Pops or the playlists of Radio 1. We can get tunes from thousands of different channels on cable and internet.

The campaign to get RATM to the top of the charts was a rockist campaign. It meant getting someone who made commercial, manufactured pop off the top of the chart in favour of an act which ticks all the right rockist boxes (politically aware, play their own instruments, write their own material).

It also stinks of control and oppression. Keeping something else off the top of the charts, like the charts have to be controlled. The people buying the Cowell crap don't care. They just like the record for what it is, what it should be. And that's how music should be, not a way to score points against people because you think they're stupid or lower class than you.