Rage Against The X Factor

[eiffel_71]

For my UK based readers :

If, like me, you are sick of the X Factor winner having a guaranteed Christmas number one every year, and especially don't want him topping the Christmas chart with a Hannah Sodding Montana song, then please buy the download of the track

KILLING IN THE NAME

by

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE

from each of these sites :

iTunes
www.7digital.co.uk
www.hmv.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk

And if you're a member at tunetribe please buy it there too.

It only costs 79p to 99p each time - and just 29p on Amazon - so you can buy six copies for well under a fiver. Buy just one from iTunes and from 7digital, but HMV, Amazon and Tunetribe all have two different entries for the track, and if you buy one of each that does count as two sales.

Please buy these tracks some time between now and Saturday evening. Thank you so much.

Let's tell them enough is enough.

Comments

[burkesworks.livejournal.com]

Do that and the money still goes to Sony.

[moonhot97.livejournal.com]

I see where you're coming from, but what the author of that post forgets is that it's not Sony BMG who make the TV show, just one of their employees.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I don't 'forget' anything of the sort. The programme is a co-production between SyCo (Simon Cowell's company) and Fremantle TV. SyCo is 50% owned by the Bertelsmann Group (http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article4467188.ece), which was bought out by Sony last year. The records are put out on SyCo records, which is a Sony label, and the publishing rights are also owned by Sony.

So in effect, this campaign - along with the Jeff Buckley one last year, and the one to get Rick Astley to number one to beat X-Factor from a year or two ago - are all sending the same message to Sony, and to SyCo, and to Cowell. That message is "If you keep making these programmes, you will be guaranteed to get money not only from those who like them, but also from those who hate them and want to punish you for making them."

In other words, this campaign is actually an *incentive* for them to keep the X-Factor going. Basic economics says that if you dislike the X-Factor (though precisely why anyone who dislikes the show should *care* about it one way or another I can't fathom - I dislike it so I don't watch it, and haven't had any great difficulty in avoiding it altogether) and you want the show to stop being produced, then the very last thing you should do is take part in this campaign.

If you dislike the X-Factor, the very best things you could do to stop it would be either to boycott Sony altogether (very difficult given how huge a company it is, and likely to end up hurting you far more than them), to boycott the show's advertisers (even more difficult) or just to not let the show affect your spending, either positively or negatively, at all.

Going out of your way to give Sony more money because they're producing the programme is a sure-fire way to get them to keep producing it.

[moonhot97.livejournal.com]

We're not trying to put the X Factor out of existence. We just want to see something different on top of the Christmas chart.

[nice-guy-but.livejournal.com]

I shall be purchasing, even though the money will still go to some huge corporate machine, and even though there is no way in hell that Radio 1 will play the lyrics "fuck you, I won't do what you tell me".

There is also charity page for SHELTER set up by the organisers. Apparently they're up to about £17,400 at the moment.

[jeffthelion.livejournal.com]

Cowell is rich enough, whether he gets a tiny bit more money out of it or not, I don't care and neither will he.

I think the point is to prove to Cowell that we don't all like the drivel he produces and perhaps irritate him a little that he didn't get the Christmas Number 1 he was no doubt smugly expecting.

I've not seen any of the X-Factor series, thankfully. I can find out the result, whether I like it or not, by logging on to Facebook and seeing friends' status updates on any given Saturday or Sunday!