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A warm Christmas cheer to all you good people.

As
we approach The Season Of Binge (operating quite effectively under the
pretence that we’re celebrating the wrong birthday of a guy who never
clapped eyes on a turkey in his life), let us reflect on what this time
of year actually means.

Get pissed, eat lots and chill the fuck out.

Christmas
is the one time of year, even for non-Christians, where pretty much
everyone in the Western world (and generally, by economic association,
a sizeble chunk of the rest of the world) can be safe in the knowledge
that most people will be sitting on their hole, doing essentially
nothing and not worrying about it.

This, of course, is not true of everyone.

Lot’s
of people don’t have a place to go(rge) on Christmas Day. But a lot of
people like this, and, anyway, the telly’s always pretty good.

Some people have absolutely nowhere to go at all.

If anyone has ventured out in recent days, I’m sure you may have noticed something.

It’s fucking freezing.

Wouldn’t want to be homeless now would you?

Rage
Against The Machine have donated all proceeds from the sale of their
track Killing In The Name to the homeless charity Shelter (http://www.shelter.org.uk) – which is extremely fitting given the time of year.

As I’m sure you’ve already heard, Rage Against The Machine have nabbed the Christmas No. 1 spot.

I think it’s great and beautifully surreal all at the same time.

A
few smarmy assholes (who probably have Playstations) have pointed out
that Simon Cowell’s pockets will now be lined with filthy lucre anyway
because Rage are signed to Epic Records, which is a subsidurary of The
Evil Sony BMG Corporation.

Can we just stop for a moment here,
please? This is hardly about which corporation benefits from this
(because they own EVERYTHING, people) but more, for once in a long
time, about pop music in the charts.

As Zack De La Rocha put it,
this was a grassroots level effort. A very appropriate fact given the
band’s activist credentials, but it also points to the power base it
originated from – the internet.

The fact that it was essentailly
Facebook is irrelevant, this showed how powerful a tool the web is and
will be in the future of music.

Killing In The Name hit the top
spot on downloads alone and without much other than social networking
(of course this bled into other media, but that was the point).

I
think this is amazing for music. The power of an online campaign has
beaten the ugly machine (excuse the pun) that has neutered pop music
for the better part of a decade.

I think this is great for pop
music itself, but it has great implications for the independent world
too. Imagine it was 20 years ago and Sub Pop had access to this amazing
network?  True indie labels having the oxegen of online distribution
and, with the inevitable financial strain greatly diminished,
labels-of-love could focus on developing their acts and not have to
worry about having a Nirvana in the wings in order to survive.

This is happening on all sorts of levels already, but Rage’s victory shows how things could ultimately swing.

A pop chart full of music by genuinely talented acts, bringing a quality and freshness to mainstream popular culture.

I’m no musicologist but I’m thinking this hasn’t really being the situation for, oh, I don’t know, about 45 years..??

This
is possibly all wishfull mulled wine-induced romanticism, but this year
regurgo-pop has become The Enemy in people’s consciousness.

Which is no bad thing, is it?

So I, at least, will be writing my Christmas thank you card to Mr. & Mrs. Morter for a ragingly good Crimbo pressie.

Merry Christmas everybody and remember to cover Nana’s ears before the naughty bit kicks in.

Disko.

disko@readerswivesband.com

X

Soundtrack :

Killing In The Name : Rage Against The Machine