Yesterday I was talking about what’s happened since I started taking a picture every day. Vaguely anyway. One thing I didn’t mention was that ever since it started, and even a few years before then, the Christmas number one has always inevitably been claimed by whoever won the X Factor TV show.
Not this year.
In a cynical move, it appears Britain has turned against the almighty X Factor and campaigned to get ‘Killing in the name’ by Rage Against the Machine to number one. Surprisingly, it worked. It started out as a facebook group, which up until now has been a useless way of getting anything done, but it appears people were very fed up indeed with Simon Cowell dictating the order of play every year – last I checked almost a million people had joined the group.
It’s not a Christmas song, I know. I’m also aware that this is simply another bandwagon that people have jumped on, much like the X Factor. Apparently, the X Factor winner and Rage Against the Machine are both on the same label.
These things have brought detractors to the campaign, with people saying ‘it’s just the same as X Factor, everyone’s just buying the same thing’. That’s not the point though, is it?
The fact of the matter is, people got together and changed the course of the chart this Christmas. It’s pop culture history – bandwagon or no bandwagon. I hope it happens again next year, national unity isn’t something that’s easy to come by these days – maybe with something a little more Christmassy next time…
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