This is a blog by Tina Jagla:
“FACEBOOK WINS: Rage Against the Machine UK Christmas Number 1” was announced by Mashable last night. Who would have thought?
Rock crowd
It was not only Facebook though, but also users on Twitter, countless bloggers and journalists in traditional media who picked the audacious campaign up and spread the word and thus the victory is a mixture of all these channels. Mostly however, it is a victory for people who actually took part in the campaign by downloading a 17 year old song.
Not surprisingly, now that it has actually happened, comments appear here and there on blogs and social networks condemning the song for being against the Christmas spirit. I agree that Christmas songs usually sound a bit different and maybe they should at least mention a tree, presents, Santa Claus or Jesus but to be fair, this song was never intended to bring Christmas cheer. Could it be that some UK citizens don’t appreciate listening to Christmas songs 24/7 starting in late November? Or is it really just about beating Simon Cowell? Whatever reason, the majority has acted and “voted” RATM over Joe.
It is not that bad though. Being very opinionated about music myself, I can understand that it might be hard to look behind the aggressive guitars and find meaning if you’re not used to this kind of music. If you google the lyrics though, you will find that the song is neither a “call to war” nor “racist”. Give it a try, you might be surprised.
