Viva Facebook and God bless Rage Against the Machine!

RATM are the greatest rap/rock combo in the world and one of the greatest bands, full-stop, of the past twenty years. Joe Bloggs is a karaoke singer from a TV talent show. If RATM make Christmas No.1 with ‘Killing in the Name Of’ (one of the most unchristmasy songs of all time), it will represent a glorious coup for the dying world of real music and a timely black-eye for Emperor Cowell and his empire of brainwashing tedium. It will also be the second most faith-affirming demonstration of the power of the Internet since Obama’s presidential victory.

And yet, even now, we have Cowell and Cheryl Cole coming out and objecting to the Facebook campaign, like disgruntled royalty complaining about the peasants. The pot’s got nothing over the kettle when Simon Cowell has the nerve to come out and compare the RATM Vs Joe Karaoke contest to ‘David and Goliath’ – and actually suggesting that ‘The X-Factor’ is DAVID in the analogy!

Right – so the billionaire mass media mogul and corporate dictator is complaining that his TV-manufactured product is being treated ‘unfairly’ because thousands of people are supporting a hard-working band of proper musicians who’ve worked their trade for sixteen years and built up a proper fanbase? Sounds about right. Seriously, if there was a Nobel Prize for Hypocrisy, then Simon Cowell would be a dead cert. He practically OWNS the music industry in this country; and THAT’S why he’s upset – no dictator is happy when the people mobilise and try to take back some power.

As for Cheryl Cole – a woman who makes Danni Minogue seem prodigiously talented – what business does she have publicly criticising the Facebook campaign? If  I were a talentless piece of eye-candy who’d somehow become filthy rich despite having no merits, I would be a bit more humble about it and just keep quiet, rather than whining about the competition. I’m sorry, but when mega-rich celebrities complain about the actions of real musicians and real music-lovers, I want to reach for the sick bucket.

At a time when musicians and musicianship are being crowded out of the marketplace by this vast corporation of television karaoke, there’s something very satisfying about the prospect of a band as great as Rage Against the Machine scoring a victory for the art over the mass media manipulation and hype. The days seem to be long gone of artists making meteoric impacts, shaking the industry or inciting musical and cultural revolutions (the Bob Dylans, Sex Pistols’, Public Enemy’s and Nirvana’s, etc); and if the X-Factor style of chart dictatorship continues, then such revelatory moments or recordings will be wholly consigned to history. But if ‘Killing in the Name Of’ outsells Mighty Joe Young, then the signs are good that hope is not lost. Rage Against the Machine are the very antithesis of anything the X-Factor might roll off its factory line, and so the choice of both artist and track are entirely fitting.

The dull, dead-eyed automatons churned out by the X-Factor have claimed the Christmas No.1 spot for the passed four years in a row. Let’s all do a favour for music and make Rage Against the Machine this year’s chart-toppers – and it’ll be a Christmas to remember. It’ll also make Jesus very happy. He was well into RATM. He’d also appreciate the somewhat Messianic nature of RATM’s potential sabotage of the corporate machine at this time of year, as Christ was all for revolt.

Merry Christmas, everyone.