Rage Against The Machine, #1.

Personally I think this is the most important thing to happen in music this century.

It’s not about the song, the genre or the band, it’s about the public standing up and saying that they won’t be spoon-fed mind numbing crap created on a production line in a few short weeks any longer.

This is what has been dominating the music industry and stifling real talent, this is the reason sales are down and piracy is up. This is the reason retired rocks bands are making come-backs and there are no new ‘superstar’ acts around.

The public have raged against the machine and won, they want REAL music. It's a good day for the music industry!

Just because the RATM track is a better song than the one from X-Factor, doesn't make this a victory for "real" music and/or the people.

This was an old fashioned pr stunt and had nothing to do with the public standing up".

Quite the opposite.

This "fight" for the X-Mas-No.1 only demonstrated that the old concept (from the days of 1,2 or 3 Radio-, TV-channels) - mass marketing - still works.

What the music industry (or at least the major labels, the big global music conglomerates) really need are new concepts, new ways to make money from lower sales.

A fairly good day for Simon Cowell too as he now profits from the top two Christmas singles instead of just one, and from the No.1 album.

That aside, there is little difference in the process of getting each of the tracks to climb the chart. Neither of them were bought because masses of people thought they were amazing tracks. If Joe McElderry had released this song without being on the X Factor it would have been dismissed as one of thousands of average songs by thousands of average singers. The RATM track has been around for several years, ignored by most record buyers until they were urged, via an organised machine, to go buy it - not because it's good but as a protest against the X Factor. The only thing this shows is that it's not only Simon Cowell who can hype a song to the top of the chart. Only to that extent has it made a difference. Rage Against The Machine has become part of the machine, although kudos to them for giving their profit to charity.

There are many quality bands and singer/songwiters out there who remain ignored by the mainstream. The majors still dominate the music scene and dictate what we see and hear. It's a near impossible task to give airplay to all music on the market, but until music fans break free from the major label mentality we won't see a great deal of change. This much publicised race for the Christmas No.1 will be a tiny blip in the history of the music industry and, once the initial murmurs about the outcome have died down, it'll be quickly forgotten by most.

Soon it will be back to business as usual.

Don't agree DD - I do think this is a momentous event. It proves that the major label system can be broken although it wasn't by this campaign. It proves that the Internet can be mobilised as a force of promotion - one stage further than my old favourite method - WORD OF MOUTH (Prosecutor in my trial "In that case why wasn't everybody doing it?").

Now let's see if a combination of TV and terrestrial exposure can combine with online crusades and mass appeal populist music to break real talent be it old or young, new or tried and tested.

I sort of agree with Dominic. I notice there was another facebook campaign to get an indie song to Christmas No.1, also with a "let's stop the X-Factor" angle. I think it began before the RATM one but was mainly ignored. People power can make a difference but most still do tend to have a major label mentality. If they've never heard of it they generally ignore it. I'd never heard RATM but I had heard of them, and that's possibly true for most people. I also agree that without the hyped up campaigns backed by the media neither of these songs would have charted.

The good thing is that X-Factor domination has been ended (although obviously Simon Cowell's hasn't). Only time will tell if this little incident has made any lasting difference. I have one friend who bought the RATM single even though she already owned it. She only bought it to help beat the X-Factor. My 15 yr old niece says it's a load of "cr*p". She also bought it to help beat the X-Factor but she doesn't play it. I'd rather see a Christmas No.1 that is truly popular. When that happens I'll believe that things have changed for the better. I suspect the most popular song this Christmas has been file shared rather than bought.

Dominic Dee wrote:
A fairly good day for Simon Cowell too as he now profits from the top two Christmas singles instead of just one, and from the No.1 album.
Just because both tracks are on Sony doesn't mean that Mr Cowell will profit!

Dominic Dee wrote:

That aside, there is little difference in the process of getting each of the tracks to climb the chart.
There’s a huge difference!

The X-Factor final had something like 19 million viewers and the weeks leading up to this it absolutely saturated all media. It was available as physical and download formats and for the week leading up to the Christmas #1 with a huge marketing machine push using every tried and tested marketing strategy out there, I dread to think what the costs were.

Now compare this to RATM . A Facebook group, snowballed by word of mouse/mouth. Download only, no physical product lining the entrances to record stores, no countless weeks of build, no 19 million viewers, no huge marketing campaign.

You always need exposure and the media got behind it because it was a good story.

Every other act for the last few years has avoided going head-to-head with the X-Factor for Christmas #1 because they believed that they didn’t have the power to do it.

With a total Christmas #1 outsider in every possible way this campaign has proved them wrong.

DJones wrote:


What the music industry (or at least the major labels, the big global music conglomerates) really need are new concepts, new ways to make money from lower sales.

There you have it!

But they're not doing it are they? Innovation is not coming from Cowell is it?

Great to see this whole thing unfold. I think its good.

There have been a lot of singles released this time of year, so I'm not sure it's true that every single act has avoided going head to head with X Factor. If you release a single at Christmas you go head to head with them.

Yes the media did get behind the facebook campaign. It was big news on every channel and in every newspaper. This kinda contradicts the purely word of mouth theory. It had gained quite a few followers before it became big news, but not enough for a realistic challenge. Only after it had saturated all media, as per X Factor, did it win enough support to make a difference.

19 million viewers for X Factor but only a few hundred thousand bought the record. To me that is the most significant statistic. Even the many that voted for Joe McThingy didn't buy his song.

On the Simon Cowell issue. It was said on BBC radio 4, during an interview with the RATM facebook organiser, that Cowell did profit from both songs. Well, good luck to him.

JC wrote:
...

19 million viewers for X Factor but only a few hundred thousand bought the record. To me that is the most significant statistic. Even the many that voted for Joe McThingy didn't buy his song.

...
That's a very interesting figure. "X Factor" is, after all, a TV show. The music sales are icing on the cake. It is worrying, however, that even the blanket media coverage doesn't seem to add up to even 5% in sales. Would a better song have done more? I'd say undoubtedly, as Joe has a lot of goodwill on his side from the show's length. Could it have reached 5, 10 or 15%?

The only problem I had was with the reasoning. I would have preferred a campaign like the Nizlopi one, which was all about the merit of the song rather than an anti Cowell campaign. As it happens Cowell wins anyway but at last we have a different Christmas number one, but they should have at least chosen a proper Christmas record.

On a wider point, Facebook have come out as the overall winner here as many people will now use Facebook as the default place to generate a buzz. No more Myspace, no more Youtube and definitely Google Adwords will suffer the most loss. It is revolutionary because with the right reason, the right song, and the right story, any record can fly into the charts WITHOUT the wise ones at radio having anything to do with it. Fantastic !

DJKZ wrote:
It is revolutionary because with the right reason, the right song, and the right story, any record can fly into the charts WITHOUT the wise ones at radio having anything to do with it. Fantastic !


Ok. But how many times will this strategy work: 1, 2,3 times a year? 5 times?

This is the OLD model, with a little help from new tools. In other words: Business as usual.

The NEW model will be about making money from music without getting into "offical" charts.

Ah yes; you see, for me, the "new model" needs to contain elements of the old model but better - charts that interest people; TV shows that get viewers; radio shows that provoke loyalty and adoration - and then we need to work out how much people will pay and for what.

DJones wrote:
The NEW model will be about making money from music without getting into "offical" charts.
That's already being done, TV & Film syncs, gigging etc. There's also a few "Youtube artists" making a living from sales of music which aren't counted by any chart.

You just don't hear about them as they're not making the charts!

Spot on Bobbie and 2010 will see, if I have anything to do with it, much higher profile, exposure and promotion for those very artistes and tracks. If it's good, we'll make it a hit and we'll make people aware of it - if you build it, they will come.

Watch out Mr Cowell; your mentor is back in business!

JK2006 wrote:
Spot on Bobbie and 2010 will see, if I have anything to do with it, much higher profile, exposure and promotion for those very artistes and tracks. If it's good, we'll make it a hit and we'll make people aware of it - if you build it, they will come.

Watch out Mr Cowell; your mentor is back in business!Woohoo! What an exciting year it promises to be.

Happy New Year Everybody!

I would like to have it explained how on earth Cowell would profit from an unrelated 17 yr old American rock track just cos it happens to be on Sony.... I thought his dreadful production company had a deal with Sony, not that SC had BECOME Sony. Smacks to me of misinformation to try and take the teeth out of the Rage campaign mid-week, fortunately one that didn't work.
If we want to show this concept really really works against the media, let's do it again next year with Another Rock'n'Roll Christmas - a song which I seem to hear in every supermarket I venture into at the minute

Glad you pointed this out Chris - Simon makes nothing out of Rage; indeed, I was a consultant to CBS (Sony way back then) in the Rage era; then moved across to BMG in the mid-late 90s and saved Simon's job there.