A Skinny Take: A good day for substance

Imagine the odds you could have got a few months ago on Rage Against The Machine’s "Killing In The Name" being at the top of the charts this Christmas day. Such a notion would have seemed so far fetched at the time you’d have likely been laughed out of Ladbrokes to baffled shouts of “rage against the what?!”

But a married couple from Essex had a different idea. Having had enough of the X-Factor’s monopoly on the number one spot for the last four consecutive Christmases, Jon and Tracy Morter decided to use Facebook as a platform to instigate action: “Fed up of Simon Cowell’s latest karaoke act being Christmas number one? Me too” the Morters declared on the Facebook page, “so who’s up for a mass-purchase of the track ‘Killing In The Name’ as a protest to the X Factor bollocks?”

The sentiment struck a chord. Everyone from Paul McCartney to Dave Grohl came out in support of the campaign – and even 2004’s X-Factor winner Steve Brookstein joined the choir of dissent, describing Cowell as a “mega rich douche” in the process; an ironic dagger in the back of his former boss, who famously dropped him from his record contract the moment his star begun to fade (after 12 weeks).

But spiting Cowell was only the partial drive behind the campaigns success – for this was not a battle between Morter and X-Factor, between the people and Cowell, or even between Rage Against The Machine and the hapless Joe McElderry; it was a battle of substance versus style, innovation versus monotony, of heart and soul versus generic, magnolia mediocrity… indeed, the real drive behind the campaign was the 500,000 people who stood up and decided it was time to add some colour to the walls.

And colour they sure got – because at number one there dwells not yet another crooning, prescribed, formulaic power-ballad littered with soulless platitudes, but a song written in the midst of the L.A riots by people who experienced them; a song that rallies against the madness of racism, police brutality and blind conformity; a song about real life, real issues.

So when you’re stuffing your face full of Brussels sprouts on Christmas Day and ‘Killing In The Name’ blasts from your television as Top Of The Pops reaches its conclusion, you don’t need to pinch yourself – it is really happening; who would’ve thought it? There might just be hope for the world after all.

 

See more of Ryan's work at http://www.rjgallagher.co.uk/