Following the crowd[surfers]

Now that one of the biggest campaigns to make changes to the music industry has succeeded, I feel that I need to defend myself (and probably others) for my actions. I have never heard, nor do I wish to hear, The Climb, by Joe McElderry, but that doesn't mean that I shouldn't be allowed to take a stand against it. Equally I don't think that this campaign was a waste of time, I think that it had good intentions which became distorted and exaggerated as the hype grew, I'm not entirely sure, but did the campaign initiators really think that this would take off as it did?

I have my qualms with the whole thing too. I don't really think that a song of this nature is particularly suited to being top of the Christmas charts, as they tend to be made into compilation CDs and other such things, in later years, and usually has to be child friendly, which this really isn't. I also do think that there is an element of cheapening a concept, by using Killing In The Name's major hook as a way of saying, we're not going to buy the CD you tell us to. Is this a strange white middle class uprising, which really is completely pointless?

Looking at previous years, it's striking that X-factor has monopolised the Christmas number one charts, which was obviously a purposeful move, but I'm not sure if having Rage sat in the list is actually going to be a good thing. I imagine that it will be shunned from Christmas number one compilations (possibly replace by Joe's song), something which wouldn't happen if it where the other way round. Obviously, there are obvious reasons for doing this (if it does indeed happen), which are mostly down to taste, but it still smacks of discrimination against non pop music. I also wonder how long Rage will stay on top, now that all the hype has essentially ended, will people still buy the record or will it simply drop off as quickly as it rose, we shall have to wait and see. I wonder if there will be any controversy? Will Rage have their title stripped from them for some pointless reason and then handed to Joe? Will Rage become a strange vague period of Christmas No. 1 history which is glazed over in an attempt to not let future generations know that real people can change things? Who knows? My other thought is that it surely had a very strange effect on sales of both of these tracks, as people would be manically buying their preferred track in an effort to knock the other off the top spot.

I image their are some very angry mums out their, annoyed at the Rage fans for ruining it for Joe, which would be mirrored if Rage hadn't won, but I think that they hype and emotions involved in this whole thing are misplaced. I didn't decide to download the Rage track because I wanted to be mean to Joe or Simon (though Simon is a turd), I downloaded it to support a group which I like and agree with their views. I also didn't do it, because of the controversy, as you can tell by my slight hesitations about the tracks suitability, had this been a different song by Rage which was less sweary, I would have still downloaded it. Had it been a different band, Elbow for instance, who I like, I would've downloaded it, had it been a band I wasn't so bothered by, I probably wouldn't have. So my motives, where of support for a band rather than a way of vengeance upon X-factor. I'll admit that I didn't instantly download the track as I wasn't really sure that this was a serious effort and thus thought little need to download a track I already owned, so there was an element of wanting to support something when it was likely to cause more impact, but why not? Would sales of Joe's track been as high had it been released earlier in the year when it would just hit the charts? It certainly wouldn't have sold as well if there hadn't been such hype.

Finally, was there any point? What will this achieve? An odd blip in the Christmas number one charts, which will be forgotten in a few years? Will this affect the music entering the charts throughout the year? Will this be turned around and used to make a heck of a lot of money for people who already have to much? Only time will tell, though I think the latter is almost certain.

Final final thought, could this all be a strange conspiracy? Was the really started on facebook by two random people, or is there some link to the industry which helped get the ball rolling? Are we really just doing what we're being told, or are we really being original?