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Artist News
RATM v X: Quotes round up
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 21 December 2009
Do you remember that time Rage Against The Machine beat ‘X-Factor’ winner Joe McElderry to the Christmas number one spot? It was yesterday I think. Well, people have said stuff about it. Here’s a quotes round up…
Chief rager Zack de la Rocha to the BBC: “We are very, very ecstatic about being number one. We really admire this incredible organic grassroots campaign and the spontaneous action taken by young people throughout the UK to topple this very sterile pop monopoly”.
Fellow rager Tom Morello in a statement released overnight: “Rage Against the Machine are honored to have been drafted by this historic grassroots campaign to make our song ‘Killing In The Name’ the number one song on the UK Christmas week pop chart. This is a huge victory by and for fans of real music and we extend our heartfelt thanks to every fan and freedom fighter who helped make our anthem of defiance and rebellion the Anarchy Christmas Miracle of 2009”.
X-Factor winner and Christmas chart loser Joe McElderry: “It’s been such an incredible couple of months and I got the best Christmas gift I could ever have asked for in winning ‘The X-Factor’. [And the campaign was] more against the show than me … if any other person had have won, the same thing would have happened, because the petition was going on before the winner had been announced”.
Tracy Morter, chief lady conspirer in the Beat Cowell campaign, to the BBC: “It was one of those little silly ideas that make you laugh in your own house. We really love music and remember when were were young the charts were really exciting. We just thought, wouldn’t it be funny if that song got to number one? It took something really strong and forceful to get people behind it”.
Jon Morter, Tracy’s fella and the chief conspirer, admitting last year he’d tried the same thing with a Rick Astley song: “From that experience we learned how the charts work and what you can get away with. When this year came around I just thought, let’s have another go. Last year was fun. This year it has gone stratospheric”.
A “gutted” Simon Cowell, bigging up Jon and Tracy: “I am genuinely impressed by the campaign they have run. It has been a good campaign with no dirty tricks and without any funding. They have been passionate and worked hard. I offered them jobs at my record company. It could be in marketing or perhaps even running the company! This is their first attempt at putting out a record and they got a Christmas No1, so they have not done badly at all. I wanted them to come and work for us. I [called them and] was deadly serious, but they haven’t taken me up on the offer”.
The aforementioned Jon M on Cowell’s phone call: “He was very nice, really nice to talk to. We had a little chat about music and just things in general really. He was lovely and he wished us well and he also said it was probably the best Christmas No1 race that he has been involved with”.
The always ridiculous Louis Walsh to The Sun: “You always have novelty records at number one for Christmas and ‘Killing In The Name’ is nothing but that. Joe has nothing to worry about at all. With all the fuss about Rage Against The Machine, people might fail to realise that Joe has still sold 450,000 records, which is phenomenal. He only lost by a tiny 50,000 sales. He will sell a million singles. I think ‘The Climb’ will be one of the biggest-selling singles of next year. Besides, it’s all about having a career – look at the albums chart. Alexandra Burke, JLS and Leona Lewis have all come from ‘X-Factor’ and sold millions”.
Rent-a-quote Paul Gambaccini speaking to The Guardian: “Not only was it the meeting of two incredible forces – Simon Cowell versus Facebook, physical versus digital sales – it was a story you could follow day by day. I rarely listen to the chart show these days but I did for the last half hour yesterday. They built up the suspense and milked it for all it was worth.”
the CMU Review Of The Year here, and Chris has written a piece all about it on his own blog here. You can read all our coverage of the RATM v X thing here.
