Why the rage, Simon?
Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks you will all be aware that the (wrong, in my opinion) winner of X Factor was crowned on Sunday. Geordie lad Joe McElderry beat Olly Murs with over 60% of the vote, securing a record contract and almost certainly a place on Dancing on Ice in a couple of years.
But, in a strange twist of events, it seems that poor old Joe may be deprived of the 15 minutes of fame pretty much guaranteed to all X Factor winners - the coveted Christmas Number 1 slot. A campaign which was started on Facebook encouraging people to buy Rage Against the Machine’s track ‘killing in the name of’ has seen the song start to outsell the X Factor winner by an estimated 10% , making it the favourite to be number one this weekend.
Simon Cowell has spoken out against the campaign, calling it ’stupid’ and it’s participants ’scrooges’. Poor Simon, as if becoming TV’s first billionaire wasn’t bad enough, he now has to face the prospect of one of his many, many acts not doing as well as he had hoped. I, for one, think it’s an excellent campaign, not just because I think Olly should have won, but because it is an excellent example of the power of social media and how it can mobilise society. Ok, so it might not be over something as important as global warming, but if people can hold a strong enough opinion about this and feel compelled to do something about it, then maybe this model can work for important campaigns in the future. As organiser Jon Morter said, ‘Even if we didn’t quite succeed it will still be a great achievement in bringing people together and actually trying to do something’. (NME.com)
What do you think? Can something as simple as a Facebook group re-write music history, and possibly change the way we campaign in future?
Tags: Facebook, music, simon_cowell, social_media, x_factor
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Comments (2)
December 18th, 2009 at 12:11 pm Posted by Sarah Mckinnon Clark
I read a comment in today’s Metro which said that Simon Cowell is a winner either way. Rage Against the Machine’s record label is owned by Sony which Simon owns shares in!
January 6th, 2010 at 11:29 am Posted by Will Hq
I think this is a really interesting thought and totally agree with you Laura. These popular campaigns are always refreshing. Lots of people think that convention and the established institutions are the movers and shakers in Britain, but every now and then they are given a bloody nose by the populus. As you say this can be on an issue like the Gurkhas or something as (seemingly trivial) as X Factor.
Also it partly made my Xmas as X Factor’s Xmas No. 1 is always just a tame, pop version of a classic. Thank God they did not release the Joe McElderry cover of Dont Stop Believing by Journey. That could have caused riots.
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