The people who are hailing the Rage Against The Machine thing as if it’s the second coming of Jesus are people who probably would have bought the X Factor single anyway. They only bought the single because they were told to, rather than because they like the band (hence why I didn’t buy it).
As much as I love the fact that real musicians had a Christmas number one again, it’s easy to forget that most people only bought it because they were following their friends on Facebook and following an idea which seemed “funny”, just like they’d follow the TV and buy a song which they were manipulated into buying through a reality talent show. If Rage Against The Machine had released a Christmas single and had won because people liked the track more than the X Factor track, it would be a different story. The sad fact of the matter is that bands like Rage Against The Machine don’t release Christmas songs, or even release songs near Christmas at all. All this activity exercised is the influence of Social Networking and proved that people downloading singles does actually make a difference in the charts… which, uh, would make sense.
Despite popular belief, the record industry doesn’t make up the charts; they need them more than the public does. For the industry, it shows them what songs are popular amongst the public and what sort of music to keep pumping out. Without it, the labels would have to guess at what people “like” in order to release stuff, which, as we probably all know, isn’t as effective as knowing. For example, I could guess that my girlfriend has cheated on me. It means nothing unless I know. On top of this fact, there is no necessary reason for the different labels to exchange information on which of their artists are doing well. The charts act as a way for not only the public to know what’s popular, but the record labels to know what’s popular on other labels.
The problem is that people don’t understand how the singles chart works. The singles chart only applies to singles, hence it’s called the singles charts. The reason bands like Rage Against The Machine don’t make it into the charts is because the people who listen to them are dedicated fans and buy their albums, which are, y’know, albums… not singles. Since they’re quite established, most of their fans buy their older albums from places like CEX or Ebay which sell the album second hand, with no contribution to the charts. When they release a new album, chances are they buy it from Amazon or a party that doesn’t necessarily contribute to the chart’s statistics.
Now, as far as the album chart goes, yes, they could get a number one album… but only when they release a new album. Muse, for example, had a number one platinum album this year with the release of “The Resistance”, despite their single making it to number nine in the UK singles chart. The reason for this is because Muse is an established band that people recognise have better albums than singles (in theory), so their Wembley Stadium-filling fans just buy the album, rather than single. Same with Green Day and all of the other established bands that released albums this, and every other year.
The reason X Factor makes it’s way to Christmas number one is because it’s the mindless sheep who buy singles that put it there. Well, “mindless sheep” is a bit harsh. The fact is that people without that much interest in music buy singles, and those are the people that watch X Factor. That’s the reason X Factor makes it so high in the charts at Christmas. It’s not necessarily popular overall, but it’s popular amongst the people who buy singles.
Short story long, what I’m trying to say is that the people who buy singles are a completely different type of listener to those who buy albums. The people who buy albums are the people who like real music with real talent. The people who buy singles are the people who are just contempt with listening to whatever music they hear played on the radio or telly. The only true way you can change this is to get rid of all the people who don’t really care about music, but unfortunately genocide is illegal.
